Help! Can't Get Rid of Panasonic S5 Sensor Glass Streaks

Tom Schum wrote:

Contact the service center. Maybe the streaks are permanent, and not your fault. Maybe the streaks are on the inside of the sensor cover glass and maybe this is a problem. If so, the service center can likely take care of it somehow.

Do the streaks appear in your images? If not, maybe it is something you don't need to worry about.

I've cleaned sensors before. I don't enjoy it, and I usually use far more than the number of swabs other users say they use, and I never get perfect results. In the past, with Sigma cameras, I sent cameras into service centers for sensor cleaning, and they always came back perfect. I'm just not good at cleaning sensors, I guess.

I appreciate the insight. The streaks aren't there right after I finish cleaning or even a few hours later it takes 2-3 days after cleaning for them to appear. I can't figure out how that is even possible.

Jomppak wrote:

Maybe sensor had some kind of coating which is not compatible with the cleaning fluid. In that case, any further cleaning makes things worse until the coating is completely removed from the sensor.

Could that be possible?

I hope that's not possible. Sensors have a coating for a reason. They need the coating. Besides, the real mystery is why I can easily get the sensor beautifully clean and then marks appear a few days later.

Platographer wrote:

I have wet-cleaned my Lumix S5 sensor glass using the proper technique (one-time use vacuum-packed VSGO swabs and sensor fluid) and it looks pristine after cleaning when I examine it with my bright LED headlamp. Then, a few days later, when I examine the sensor glass, I see streaks even if the camera had been sitting in my dry cabinet the whole time and not used. These streaks are not there a few hours later or even the next day. It takes 2-3 days for them to appear.

You are obviously very careful with your gear.  Have you considered that the different atmosphere in the dry cabinet might have some bearing on the matter?

I have tried cleaning the sensor glass multiple times and have gone through a whole pack of swabs. I have tried varying degrees of fluid on the swab (from one to four drops--never directly on the sensor glass), but nothing seems to matter. I just cleaned it one more time using the older VSGO fluid (which is in a different bottle, but I'm not sure if it is actually different than the new bottles). We'll see what happens.

I avoid wet cleaning like the plague - it seems the best way to create a problem and should be a last resort when all else fails.

Has anyone else had this problem? I don't want to keep cleaning the sensor glass, both because the swabs are expensive and I'm afraid if I clean it too much (even following proper technique), I could damage the coating on the glass at some point. With my Sony A7Riv, I wet clean the sensor glass every other month or so and usually only need to use two or three swabs each time and never have I seen streaks magically appear days later.

Most cameras now have some form of dust shake mechanism built in which is very effective.

My story is that I have only once had to resort to wet cleaning and that resulted in possible up to 10 follow up cleans before I was satisfied. The occasion must have been 10+ years ago where at a wedding I left my camera bag opened under a  dry bush and changed lenses in the bag which I thought safe enough. But the bush must have been ‘raining’ dry but sticky-resin dust. Some of it stuck on my sensor surface and refused to blow off.

When I wet cleaned it the resin dust came off easily but the cleaning fluid left a tide mark of diluted dried resin/cleaning-fluid residue. The more I repeated the clean the wider and less obvious the tide mark became.  Until in desperation maybe the 10th repeat clean finally reduced the tidemark to a point where I could no longer see it.

I have never felt that I needed to wet clean since.

The upshot is that I am very careful not to allow sticky dust to get on my sensor and on the few occasions where I have noticed dry dust on sensor despite my efforts to avoid it then I have found that regular dust blows off easily enough even where there is no dust shake-removal mechanism.

Pity the poor owner of the fixed lens retracting zoom cameras - the only way to get the dust off their sensors is to completely disassemble the camera.

I now use multiple cameras each with a lens to avoid changing lenses in the field - that I own several tiny GM5 camera bodies makes this relatively easy.  Otherwise a good zoom lens is your senor-dust-free friend

Tom Caldwell wrote:

Platographer wrote:

I have wet-cleaned my Lumix S5 sensor glass using the proper technique (one-time use vacuum-packed VSGO swabs and sensor fluid) and it looks pristine after cleaning when I examine it with my bright LED headlamp. Then, a few days later, when I examine the sensor glass, I see streaks even if the camera had been sitting in my dry cabinet the whole time and not used. These streaks are not there a few hours later or even the next day. It takes 2-3 days for them to appear.

You are obviously very careful with your gear. Have you considered that the different atmosphere in the dry cabinet might have some bearing on the matter?

Yes, that occurred to me. I keep the dry cabinet at 41% humidity. I'm not sure what the ambient humidity is with my AC on, but it is likely higher than that during the summer. The sensor looks clean and dry when I put it in the dry cabinet, so I don't see how lower humidity could cause marks to appear.

Has anyone else had this problem? I don't want to keep cleaning the sensor glass, both because the swabs are expensive and I'm afraid if I clean it too much (even following proper technique), I could damage the coating on the glass at some point. With my Sony A7Riv, I wet clean the sensor glass every other month or so and usually only need to use two or three swabs each time and never have I seen streaks magically appear days later.

Most cameras now have some form of dust shake mechanism built in which is very effective.

Unfortunately neither my Lumix S5 nor my Sony A7Riv has a good sensor shake auto-cleaning mechanism. I haven't ever noticed an improvement using auto sensor cleaning. Neither camera seems to have an ultrasonic mechanism, as I can hear and feel the vibration. I only use the sensor cleaner mode to lock the sensor up before wet cleans.

My story is that I have only once had to resort to wet cleaning and that resulted in possible up to 10 follow up cleans before I was satisfied. The occasion must have been 10+ years ago where at a wedding I left my camera bag opened under a dry bush and changed lenses in the bag which I thought safe enough. But the bush must have been ‘raining’ dry but sticky-resin dust. Some of it stuck on my sensor surface and refused to blow off.

When I wet cleaned it the resin dust came off easily but the cleaning fluid left a tide mark of diluted dried resin/cleaning-fluid residue. The more I repeated the clean the wider and less obvious the tide mark became. Until in desperation maybe the 10th repeat clean finally reduced the tidemark to a point where I could no longer see it.

I have never felt that I needed to wet clean since.

The upshot is that I am very careful not to allow sticky dust to get on my sensor and on the few occasions where I have noticed dry dust on sensor despite my efforts to avoid it then I have found that regular dust blows off easily enough even where there is no dust shake-removal mechanism.

I find that tiny dust particles are rarely removable with a blower (I have a VSGO filtered blower that is reasonably strong), so wet cleaning is the only way I have found so far to remove the dust. I protect my sensor and, when I change lenses in the field (which I rarely do), I have a method that leaves the sensor exposed for maybe one second. If not for dust, there would not be a need for me to wet clean with any regularity. I tried the Arctic Butterfly brush to remove tiny dust specks. I was hoping that would allow me to avoid wet cleaning. Unfortunately, the brush seemed to leave marks and make the sensor glass worse. It took several wet cleans to clean up that mess. Or so I thought. I wonder if that incident is related to the ongoing issue I am having. I wish I never tried that brush and am glad I didn't try on my Sony A7Riv.

I now use multiple cameras each with a lens to avoid changing lenses in the field - that I own several tiny GM5 camera bodies makes this relatively easy. Otherwise a good zoom lens is your senor-dust-free friend

Yes, I agree zoom lenses are your friend when you want to keep the sensor clean. But primes can achieve some really fabulous IQ. Due to my apprehension of changing lenses, I have never used my Sony 20mm f/1.8 in the field, but my tests show it is amazingly sharp. I need to make a point to use that. When I was in Lake Tahoe, I took a lot of photos at 28mm with my Tamron 28-200mm. In hindsight, I should have switched to my Sony 16-35 GM f/2.8. The Sony is simply sharper on the edges and has less purple fringing. I feel like the benefits of my caution are far outweighed by the benefits of more freely changing lenses in the field. I have to change that and loosen up a little. I am going to San Diego soon, so I will make a point to be more flexible during that trip.

I used to be paranoid about dust - I still have an Arctic Butterfly kit tucked away somewhere.  But I have long since given up worrying about it. If I don’t see dust in my images then any dust on my sensor is hardly worth the worry. From time to time a dust bunny appears in an image and after a mild curse I blow it off when I can. Dust on sensor is usually not visible in images except at very small apertures.

My technique once was the workshop air compressor which was regarded with some horror by purists as one way to destroy the insides of your camera cavity. But I was careful to hold the nozzle at some distance away and at an angle for an indirect “puff”. Even my dslr mirrors seem to have survived without issue. Presumably I was careful - just enough.

In later times I have had a small air compressor of the type used for air-brushing and fitted a conventional air duster to it.   The pressure volume is probably a lot safer than what the workshop one offers.  It is certainly much more effective and quicker than the conventional squeeze-bulb blower.

Since my horror-story issues with my only ever wet-clean I have avoided wet cleans - but if I ever suffered a resinous sticky-dust issue then I might have to resort to the wet clean again.  The main issue is that the chemical used is not 100% volatile especially if some of it becomes mixed into dissolved resinous dust compound  and smeared into a tide mark.  Worse than dust!  Isopropyl alcohol is cheaper than commercially packaged cleaners.

I guess that I am just lucky to live in a rural part of a quite dusty country where the dust is not chemical but rather just dry dirt and vegetable matter. Probably of a more scratchy type but at least determined to lie there with perhaps some static affinity but such as it is not otherwise bonded to the surface of the sensor - even microscopic lint is not bound to the sensor.

A good well-directed blast of air has almost always fixed first dose.  Even lenses left uncapped for a short while can pick up some dust. Airborne dust is everywhere here.

But for the small quantities then then the squeeze-bulb blower works fine.  I only ever polish them if the first blow leave some dust residue. This is done (lenses only) with ordinary window cleaner and paper towel (argh!). There are obvious paper fibres left which are further polished with a proper micro-fibre cloth once the surface is properly dry. By this time the dust is usually gone and been replaced by paper lint fragments which are easily blown to oblivion by a squeeze bulb blower.  But even I would never tackle a sensor with such a casual cleaning process.

We live in a sub-tropical climate that hardly needs artificial cooling or heating year-round.  Therefore rapidly varying humidity levels are not an issue.  Note that air-conditioning dries the air.  My lenses live in an attic room under an often hot roof, an area that mostly stays hot and dry. But we get some very wet humid weather outside at times.  As the house has no artificial climate moderation the humidity does get inside but what is outside is modified by the building construction - therefore wild changes simply don’t happen quickly.

I don’t use any other special care. I have a lot of lenses and I could not possibly find the resources to give them extra attention.  But my lenses nevertheless seem to survive quite well.

But if I am driving around in an air-conditioned car in hot weather after a very wet day I often find that my eye-glasses fog up immediately on alighting. The otherwise seemingly clean lenses can coalesce any previously unseen aerial dust on to them and when the fogging disperses all of a sudden they need cleaning.

I have often wondered how optical equipment survives in cold/wet countries (outside) with constant hot dry (internal) heating systems in winter.  The rapid humidity changes must be huge.

I bought a cheap lens from Moscow in the depths of the Russian winter, it arrived “full of water” in the middle of a searingly hot Australian summers day. I figured that whatever atmosphere got in could be brought back out - so I put it in a sealed plastic bag with a packet of desiccant on our verandah out of direct sunlight. It worked - in a  matter of hours all the internal moisture was gone. Forever of course as there was not dust inside only condensed Russian atmosphere.

Sure enough, a few days after the sensor appeared pristine--streaks appeared. How do I test whether these will show up? Obviously, I should use f/22, but what is a good scene to test this? A bright sky? A sunset? I figure if they don't show up in an extreme test, then I won't worry about them. They're not very easy to see, but at the right angle with the bright LED, the subtle marks are there after a few days.

Another question I have is how much of the sensor glass at the top and bottom, if any extends past the sensor? At the very very top of the sensor, there is a bit of what appears to be dried cleaning fluid.

Tom Schum wrote:

Platographer wrote:

Sure enough, a few days after the sensor appeared pristine--streaks appeared. How do I test whether these will show up? Obviously, I should use f/22, but what is a good scene to test this? A bright sky? A sunset? I figure if they don't show up in an extreme test, then I won't worry about them. They're not very easy to see, but at the right angle with the bright LED, the subtle marks are there after a few days.

Another question I have is how much of the sensor glass at the top and bottom, if any extends past the sensor? At the very very top of the sensor, there is a bit of what appears to be dried cleaning fluid.

The sensor glass should be attached to the sensor package with a hermetic seal. This seal might be made of what some call "glass frit" or other cement. Only very rarely will this seal fail, and when it does the sensor itself usually will fail as well from moisture entering and corroding its surface. All guesswork here, so far, on my part.

I worked in electronics for some years and saw these sorts of seals, and none of them failed for me. I could fracture them with a razor blade and a mallet, as I learned by fiddling with defective devices, but otherwise they remained intact. These were mostly erasable programmable memory devices, not sensors, but they had the glass window and the glass frit cement seals.

It is likely that there are two layers of glass, one being an infrared blocking filter. Most likely, this filter is on top, and the surface of it is what you clean. If condensation and/or cleaning fluid gets in between the filter and the sensor cover glass, you won't be able to clean it out without removing the infrared blocking filter. I think the filter is removed by the people who convert cameras to infrared, and the only other people who might know how to do it are the people at the manufacturer's service center. It is possible that this filter is bonded to the sensor cover glass with clear cement, too.

This does not explain why the streaks appear only a few days after you clean, however, unless the cleaning liquid is regularly getting into that gap between the infrared blocking filter and the sensor cover glass, if there is a gap, and filling it up for a few days.

I cannot be sure that there is even a gap here; it depends on how the camera was manufactured. Again, they would know at the manufacturer's service center.

It's a really strange problem I haven't heard of, so I wish you the best of luck.

I appreciate the theory. I can probably rule that out because, as soon as I use a swab on the glass, it is pristine again. The cleaning marks are easily removed with a new swab, so it is on the outside surface. What is the best way to test whether these subtle cleaning marks that appear after cleaning will show up in realistic photos and videos. Like, If I take a bunch of shots in harsh sunlight and of the sky at f/22 and don't find any issues in the photos, could I be rest assured that it is very unlikely that the streaks would ever show up in my photos or videos? I never shoot smaller than f/16 and very rarely above f/11.

A clear blue sky at f22 is bound to show up anything on your sensor surface quite clearly.

I avoid doing this unless I have to as what I cannot see in my images has never bothered me.

If dust or smear can be seen at f8.0 or wider then cleaning might be advisable.

Tom Caldwell wrote:

A clear blue sky at f22 is bound to show up anything on your sensor surface quite clearly.

I avoid doing this unless I have to as what I cannot see in my images has never bothered me.

If dust or smear can be seen at f8.0 or wider then cleaning might be advisable.

Alright, so if it doesn't show up under those circumstances, it's not a problem. That's how I will look at it.

I´ll need to clean my S5 and I am waiting for a cleaning set to arrive.

One Lumix S5 user on Facebook assured me it works - but who knows,

maybe HE thinks the streaks are just new dirt.

Anyway, after some research:

Wikipedia says the sensor is the Exmor IMX410:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exmor

Wikipedia lists the Sony α7 III, Nikon Z 6 Panasonic S1/S1H (so I guess the S5 as well) and Sigma fp as the Cameras using it.

It is very likely but not confirmed for this sensor that the antireflective coating

of the glass is magnesium fluoride:

Magnesium fluoride

Pretty tough btw with a mohs hardness of 6, but sand (quartz) can scratch it.

The solubility in water 0.13 g/1l. I guess this equals "almost insoluble".

Just a guess that your solution cracked the magnesium fluoride and it attracts

mousture from the air. Maybe the VSGO solution had some acetone in it

that dissolves the layer.

But again, these are just guesses.

Another Source, Sony's QHY410C astro camera that uses the IMX410 as well:

https://www.qhyccd.com/qhy410c/

"Cleaning the CMOS sensor and optical window

If you find dust on the CMOS sensor, you can first unscrew the front plate of the cam and then clean the CMOS sensor with a cleaning kit for SLR camera sensors. Because the CMOS sensor has an AR (or AR/IR) coating, you need to be careful when cleaning. This coating can scratch easily so you should not use excessive force when cleaning dust from its surface."

I stumbled over this cleaning advice from ARRI:

https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/178182/b88ad5646a684fe3a356fd3223b546f9/arri-camera-sensor-cover-glass-cleaning-instructions-data.pdf

ARRI builts many parts of the sensors themselves so the cover glass

is from them. Their film cameras are famed for their durability -

some of them are for rental only.

So many camera assistants who put their hands on them.

Panavision is another company. They give no cleaning instructions

but sell Vdust sensor plus.

Back to ARRI, quote from their wet cleaning procedure:

"2.2Wet Cleaning

Wet cleaning is recommended to remove grease or sticky dirt that cannot be removed by contact-free cleaning.

Prepare three different liquids in spray or drop dispensing bottles:

1.a neutral window detergent

2.deionized distilled water

3.spectroscopy grade isopropyl alcohol.

Always use these liquids in this sequence when cleaning

Instructions

1.Use “Texwipe Absorbond® Swab TX762 with Long Handle”

2.Always store swabs inside original bag.

Remove one by one for use.

Store swab bag in a dust-protected environment.

3.Pour cleaning liquid into separate container.

Never apply liquid to swab directly from storage container.

4.Apply cleaning liquid to swab.

5.Use swab with gentle touch. Never apply pressure."

Assuming that ARRI sensors are cleaned very often (Dune, anyone?)

and assuming their coating is magnesium fluoride as well, water should

be of no harm.

But these are only guesses. Maybe someone can shed a light

what upper AR/IR coating is applied on the Exmor410 and if I am correct with

magnesium fluoride.

Maybe this article helps:

https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Common_Infrared_Optical_Materials_and_Coatings_A/a25495

Best, Herbert GH_2

Herbert_GH2 wrote:

I´ll need to clean my S5 and I am waiting for a cleaning set to arrive.

One Lumix S5 user on Facebook assured me it works - but who knows,

maybe HE thinks the streaks are just new dirt.

Anyway, after some research:

Wikipedia says the sensor is the Exmor IMX410:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exmor

Wikipedia lists the Sony α7 III, Nikon Z 6 Panasonic S1/S1H (so I guess the S5 as well) and Sigma fp as the Cameras using it.

It is very likely but not confirmed for this sensor that the antireflective coating

of the glass is magnesium fluoride:

Magnesium fluoride

Pretty tough btw with a mohs hardness of 6, but sand (quartz) can scratch it.

The solubility in water 0.13 g/1l. I guess this equals "almost insoluble".

Just a guess that your solution cracked the magnesium fluoride and it attracts

mousture from the air. Maybe the VSGO solution had some acetone in it

that dissolves the layer.

But again, these are just guesses.

Another Source, Sony's QHY410C astro camera that uses the IMX410 as well:

https://www.qhyccd.com/qhy410c/

"Cleaning the CMOS sensor and optical window

If you find dust on the CMOS sensor, you can first unscrew the front plate of the cam and then clean the CMOS sensor with a cleaning kit for SLR camera sensors. Because the CMOS sensor has an AR (or AR/IR) coating, you need to be careful when cleaning. This coating can scratch easily so you should not use excessive force when cleaning dust from its surface."

I stumbled over this cleaning advice from ARRI:

https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/178182/b88ad5646a684fe3a356fd3223b546f9/arri-camera-sensor-cover-glass-cleaning-instructions-data.pdf

ARRI builts many parts of the sensors themselves so the cover glass

is from them. Their film cameras are famed for their durability -

some of them are for rental only.

So many camera assistants who put their hands on them.

Panavision is another company. They give no cleaning instructions

but sell Vdust sensor plus.

Back to ARRI, quote from their wet cleaning procedure:

"2.2Wet Cleaning

Wet cleaning is recommended to remove grease or sticky dirt that cannot be removed by contact-free cleaning.

Prepare three different liquids in spray or drop dispensing bottles:

1.a neutral window detergent

2.deionized distilled water

3.spectroscopy grade isopropyl alcohol.

Always use these liquids in this sequence when cleaning

Instructions

1.Use “Texwipe Absorbond® Swab TX762 with Long Handle”

2.Always store swabs inside original bag.

Remove one by one for use.

Store swab bag in a dust-protected environment.

3.Pour cleaning liquid into separate container.

Never apply liquid to swab directly from storage container.

4.Apply cleaning liquid to swab.

5.Use swab with gentle touch. Never apply pressure."

Assuming that ARRI sensors are cleaned very often (Dune, anyone?)

and assuming their coating is magnesium fluoride as well, water should

be of no harm.

But these are only guesses. Maybe someone can shed a light

what upper AR/IR coating is applied on the Exmor410 and if I am correct with

magnesium fluoride.

Maybe this article helps:

https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Common_Infrared_Optical_Materials_and_Coatings_A/a25495

Best, Herbert GH_2

Well that was indepth.

I've wet cleaned my S5 sensor twice in my ownership due to non removable dirt, at least using the contact-free methods.  Never had an issue and see no streaks. I'd say if the camera's photos are okay don't worry about it.

Well that was indepth.

To the benefit of others. I like to know how my stuff works.

No problems with streaks btw. Looks like the last cleaning

must be done with as less as fluid as possible...

Herbert_GH2 wrote:

Well that was indepth.

To the benefit of others. I like to know how my stuff works.

No problems with streaks btw. Looks like the last cleaning

must be done with as less as fluid as possible...

Nothing gets rid of the streaks. I have tried using more or less or no liquid and it doesn't matter. The sensor looks great for a few hours even when I inspect it with my bright LED headlamp. Then, the next day or so the residue shows up. I can't detect any effect on images, but it drives me nuts because it's just so ridiculous and I feel like the streaks must affect image quality in a subtle way I'm not detecting but that is nonetheless important.