First time sensor cleaning experience (Sony A7III)

I have never cleaned sensor on my Nikon cameras before, they did not got dirty that much to bother. I let the Nikon service to clean them few times over years and they did great job.

But my A7III was getting quite a bit of dirt on sensor even after month and half of owning so I decided I will be doing this often so I better learn it myself.

I have Eyelead Air Blower, but that one was not sufficient to clean it so I wanted to get some wet cleaning. Only one available in a local shop was Green Clean SC-4060 so I bought that. It has one wet foam swab (smaller than short sensor side) and one dry sweeper (width matching a short side of sensor). I did not want a gel stick based on reports of being it unsuitable for Sony sensors.

Here is how sensor looked before cleaning taking picture at f/22 to show all dirt (that does not get seen at wider apertures), manual focus, ISO 100, long exposure with movement to blur white tiles on the wall:

initial (no contrast adjustments)

All the remaining pictures are with following contrast adjustments in LR:

Here is the picture from same RAW as above, but with contrast adjustments applied:

initial (high contrast)

So this is initial state. Then I was vigorously blowing some air from close distance to clean it. Result of this blowing was this (still quite dirty, disregard the big ridge on the left - that is just wall detail not fully blurred by movement):

after blowing (high contrast)

I have put camera into cleaning mode to have non-moving sensor and did wet cleaning with first wet foam swab and dry sweeper. I did it in same way as shown in product demo videos. It cleaned, but not fully:

after first wet & dry cleaning (high contrast)

I did second pass with another pair (they are not supposed to be reused):

after second wet & dry cleaning (high contrast)

This is good enough and it will not be visible in low contrast pictures at all.

The original state was not overly bad, but when I was shooting distant low contrast landscape with 24-105 at 105mm f/8 and f/5.6 I needed to increase contrast in post-processing and then dirt was quite visible.

eques wrote:

Interesting.

Is it a general phenomenon with SONY FE cameras, that the sensor needs a lot of cleaning, or did you use your camera in dusty surroundings?

I come from M43 and had to clean a sensor only once in 7 years in spite of a lot of lens changing.

I did change lenses a lot in dusty environments. But I have been doing same thing with D750 as well and it was better. Perhaps a mirror helps a bit, but if dust gets onto mirror it may find its way onto sensor when mirror is flapping anyway.

M43 cameras have much thicker glass over sensor (than Canon, Nikon and Sony) so all that dust is farther away and more out of focus.

jtra wrote:

eques wrote:

Interesting.

Is it a general phenomenon with SONY FE cameras, that the sensor needs a lot of cleaning, or did you use your camera in dusty surroundings?

I come from M43 and had to clean a sensor only once in 7 years in spite of a lot of lens changing.

I did change lenses a lot in dusty environments. But I have been doing same thing with D750 as well and it was better. Perhaps a mirror helps a bit, but if dust gets onto mirror it may find its way onto sensor when mirror is flapping anyway.

M43 cameras have much thicker glass over sensor (than Canon, Nikon and Sony) so all that dust is farther away and more out of focus.

Also, since it is mirrorless, the shutter isn't really covering the sensor all the time (except at the moment of actual exposure) as it is in a traditional SLR camera, so there is no mirror or shutter blocking the dust from the sensor during lens changes.

phototeacher wrote:

Also, since it is mirrorless, the shutter isn't really covering the sensor all the time (except at the moment of actual exposure) as it is in a traditional SLR camera, so there is no mirror or shutter blocking the dust from the sensor during lens changes.

I have been wondering why the shutter don't close when one changes lens. Could be made as automatic operation when one presses in the lens locking button or as a manual option in menus/custom buttons.

I cleaned my A7R2 sensor many times using the following method - repeat at you own risk

1. Use camera built-in senor cleaning mode. This should get rid of large, non-sticky particles.

2. Use combination of a blower and soft brush to remove the rest of dust, this is usually sufficient.

3. If something is stuck to the sensor, I use Zeiss Lens Wipes - they are designed for cameras, binoculars, etc. - for coated lenses. Open the individual wipe pack, but DON'T unfold the wipe. The width of the folded wipe matches the width of the sensor perfectly.

With the folded wet wipe, gently slide from one edge of the sensor to another, and back, tilting the wipe in the direction of the movement. Repeat if needed, rotating the wipe 90 degrees. Use it just like a sensor wet cleaning swab.

4. Inspect the sensor after each swipe. When you are sure that there are no particles attached to the sensor anymore, wipe the sensor with clean microfiber cloth to remove any residual streaks, and blow with air to dry / remove lint from the cloth.

This method lives my camera sensor perfectly clean, and causes no damage. I used it many times, and it costs nearly nothing.

Have my 7 iii for two weeks , change the lens just two times , in side . The sensor was full of dust stick on, had to take it to the shop I buy it and a profesional clean it , he told me the sensor was really hard to clean , still have two very small spots . I use Canon for years and never had this problem .

vali003 wrote:

Have my 7 iii for two weeks , change the lens just two times , in side . The sensor was full of dust stick on, had to take it to the shop I buy it and a profesional clean it , he told me the sensor was really hard to clean , still have two very small spots . I use Canon for years and never had this problem .

Canon sensor drops down and mirror protects - Sony stays exposed and is dust magnet

lots of pluses and minuses with these different camera designs

I am reading a lot of complaints here about dirty sensors - no good

This is very similar to what we have on the pictures up ,  this dirt on my sensor was after two weeks of use, and two lens change inside. I think everybody needs to check the sensor when using the first time, looks to me come already dirty.

vali003 wrote:

This is very similar to what we have on the pictures up , this dirt on my sensor was after two weeks of use, and two lens change inside. I think everybody needs to check the sensor when using the first time, looks to me come already dirty.

Yep! Looks similarly to mine as well... Been ‘fighting’ with dust for last month but there can’t really get rid of it.

P.S. Can there theoretically be accumulated dust behind the shutter as well..Which gets on the sensor later? Or it is not possible?

I am asking because my camera’s sensor got cleaned professionally, and even not changing the lens - in the first picture I saw only 1-2 dots but after taking some more in 10 minutes there were around 20. Those spots do not move and there are now no new spots, however...