How to clean your dSLR sensor
So you have spent thousands on your camera and you’re wondering how to clean it? Well it’s a good question to ask; a dirty sensor will impact every single one of your images, as it is – quite literally – the focal point of all the camera’s technology. That’s right, your hard earned dollars reduced to the mercy of the elements. Scary thought eh? Despair thee not, young padawan, help is at hand…
Well, good news! You are in the right place place to learn how to simply, cheaply, and quickly clean your DSLR and get back to the important part; taking photos.
Your goal is to remove dust (and possibly moisture) off the sensor. You want to do this as carefully and easily as you can. There are myriad people who are delighted to take your money off you to help you do this, so let’s start by picking some of the best:
Sensor Swab
‘Sensor Swab‘ is the preferred method and for a very good reason; it’s a mighty fine product which is recommended by quite a few of the camera manufacturers to boot. Sensor Swab is a wet solution which is applied to the sensor by a, well, swab.
For around $25 you can get yourself a kit and that will remove both wet and dry dust. It is 99.9% effective when done properly and even offers a guarantee in case of damage to the sensor – which is handy, because replacing a damaged sensor is filthy expensive. The downside is that it can’t be shipped by air and is illegal in some countries (due to containing methanol). If you’ve got a decent camera shop nearby, however, they probably stock some – go talk to your friendly neighbourhood lenspeddler to find out.
Brush
Here is the old fashion method. Offering multiple uses and a straight forward method the brush definitely has some advantages. Brushes generally use a method that utilizes static allowing the brush fibers to remove stubborn dust. A brush is also very transportable.
Down sides include the fact that the brush cannot be cleaned and can’t remove wet dust or moisture. A standard brush will cost about $25 while the ‘Brush Off‘ brand (which is more effective) will set you back about $50.
Blower
Using an air blower – like the Giottos Air Rocket – is what your manual will recommend, the reason for this is there is no contact required with the sensor, which reduces the risk of anything going wrong. Unfortunately the downside is that the blower is not that effective, and doesn’t actually remove the dust from the inside of your camera; it merely shuffles it about a bit. In addition, it will struggle to remove dust with a static charge and anything with moisture.
Despite its downsides, using an air blower is often the easiest thing to do when you’re in the field – it’s easy to transport, relatively cheap, and gets rid of the worst dust in a quick and capable way.
Time for a spring clean!
Every once and again, you need to clean your sensor properly; depends on how much you use your camera, but for me, it’s approximately every 2-3 months or so, a process which involves several of the products above. Here’s how to do it:
Charge the Battery – If your battery dies at any point this can be very bad news and step 2 explains why.
Open Shutter – This is different for all cameras but most have a ’sensor cleaning mode’ which will open the shutter and move the mirror aside so you can access the sensor for cleaning. If the battery dies during this phase will close and possible take the swab with it which will probably cause damage to the inside of your camera.
Blow out excess dust – Look for a dust free environment and begin blowing, this removes the big particles of dust. Never use compressed air in a ’spray can’ for this (it leaves a residue) – get one of the bellow-style blowers like the Giottos Air Rocket described earlier in this article. This is extremely important because if this isn’t done at a later stage you can be dragging particles around with the swab, causing scratches and more problems than you had before. (NOTE: Some people will suggest using a foot pump because your hands are free, DO NOT DO THIS. Reason being a foot pump has too much power and sits on the floor drawing in dust and dirt)
Take a look – Use a small torch/flashlight (the little single-LED torches are great for this) to spot exactly where there are dust particles on your sensor
Swab – Use as little swabbing liquid as you can while swabbing and apply with the pressure of the pen. Use one side of the swab for the liquid solution, and the other to wipe when complete – whatever you do, don’t touch the swab itself.
Do some test shots – the easiest way to do this is to take a photo of a blue sky or similar even, bright surface, and look at your image at 100% magnification on your computer. If you still see problems, it’s back to point 1 for a second try.
Now comes the trickiest bit; going back out there and taking shots so awesome that they’re worthy of your freshly cleaned imaging sensor. Good luck and have fun!
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Insights, suggestions and comments
I guess blowing with CLEAN compressed air while carefully holding a vacuum cleaner hose nearby the opening will aid in actually getting the dust out instead of moving it around. Keep the vacuum cleaner running and hold the hose 2″ from the lens mount (DON’T make contact with the camera body as doing so will give the camera’s internals a less than pleasing blow job..). Blow compressed air in several short bursts.
Øyvind; Clean compressed air is best, of course, but most of us don’t have access to fancy air compressors like yourself ;)
Most new camera’s clean their own sensors (like SSWF on Olympus cams). Hurray for technology :D
@Øyvind+Haje: Be careful about using compressed air. Some of them contains liquid propellants.
Does the sensor self clean tech really work?
My advice is to clean the objectives first. I had a lot of specks on my pictures and the only kit I found in the local electronic store was not meant for sensor cleaning.
I cleaned the objectives and now my pics looks good again. It was no need to wash the sensor this time.
I completely agree, Kjetil, that’s why I’m not recommending it in the main article. I happen to know that Øyvind has a very good, high-end air compressor designed for spray-painting things – that’s definitely good enough. If you can get your hands on medical-grade air compressors, even better – problem is that many people try to ’shortcut’ and use the compressed-air-in-a-can things, which isnt’ usually air; it’s a gas of some sort which, as you point out, leaves residue, which will make matters worse.
Danferno: Yeah, a lot of modern cameras have self-clean, what this does is that it uses ultrasound (!) vibrations to ’shake’ your sensor. Any dust captured on the sensor will be shaken off, but the problem is that it’ll still be floating around inside the camera.
I thought compressed air wasn’t recommended due to the liquid inside the can..
You missed out another key tool: a sensor loupe [like this http://www.visibledust.com/products3.php?pid=602. They’ll help you see just how dirty your sensor is – I’ve had times when my sensor looked clean to the naked eye, but looking at it with a sensor loupe showed dirt and hair that I couldn’t previously see.
I’m really glad I’ve found this post! I was trying to clean the sensor of my Nikon D1X yesterday because it has a lot of dust on it… I’ll give the swabs a try and see what happens! Thank you!
What would happen if you did the ultrasound cleaning with the lens off the camera and the camera facing down. Would it fall off?
Ah, the infamous dust spot in-ever-single-photo. I always forget to try and clean it until after I’ve taken dozens of photos…
Such an awesome page of advice! I can’t wait to read more tips from you! Much thanks to you!
I wasn’t actually suggesting you go and buy an auto painting grade compressor and filter units to do your sensor spring cleaning. That would be a little arrogant. Even though I have access to this equipment, I would still choose compressed air in a can. I was thinking more along the lines of something like this: http://bit.ly/nuLlb
Oh, and seeing that others warn about this kind of compressed air; I’ve had no problems with using these cans. Just make sure you hold the can at a good distance. As the air is decompressed while it leaves the can, it cools down quite rapidly and releases moisture trapped int it during the compression stage. Holding the nozzle at about a 15″ distace from the lens mount should allow the moisture to dissipate.
The self-cleaning sensors are only so good…
Hi
After reading your article I was wondering if anyone can help. When I llok through my view finder on my eos 1000d, I can see what looks like a hair in the top left hand corner of the view finder. It does not affect my images – no evidence that I can see.
Could anyone tell me where this “hair” might be? (ive tried cleaning the outside of the viewfinder)
wow! this is a really helpful tutorial. i always wondered how to get rid of the dust in my lens and this definitely be a good guidance :)
Roger, I believe the hair will be on your mirror. Remove the lens and use an air blower. Don’t use mirror lock up
You may not believe me but I cleaned my Canon Rebel using the “kamikaze” Scotch tape method. Use the Scotch® Magic™ Tape 810 (Matte Finish-Permanent). Make a loop with the glue side out and carefully stick to the sensor. Then, even more carefully peel it off from one side. The sensor gets perfectly clean! Try it out first on an clean mirror and check if it leaves and goo.
Warning: I said “The Kamikaze Method”!
Now without the typos!
You may not believe me but I cleaned my Canon Rebel using the “kamikaze” Scotch tape method. Use the Scotch® Magic™ Tape 810 (Matte Finish-Permanent). Make a loop with the glue side out and carefully stick to the sensor. Then, even more carefully peel it off from one side. The sensor gets perfectly clean! Try it out first on a clean mirror and check if it leaves any goo.
Warning: I said “The Kamikaze Method”!
Holy smokes, Fernando – that IS pretty kamikaze-like!
I’d probably seriously recommend against this, to be honest :o
- Haje
Just a quick comment on the last step of test shooting to confirm if the sensor is indeed clean – it’s pretty essential to stop down the lens as much as possible at this stage, f22 or thereabouts, and ideally set it to the minimum focussing distance to see any remaining dust as clearly as possible.
Increasing the depth of field by stopping down will actually bring any dust particles on the sensor more into focus too.
If you test shoot at a wide aperture with focus set to infinity, only the largest dust particles will show up, and even against a plain background they will most likely only appear as faint dark marks.
I second using the Giottos Air Rocket, especially since it also doubles as a blower for cleaning your lens. As for a wet clean (which I’ve only had to do once), I highly recommend using Eclipse solution. It’s made by the same folks who make the Sensor Swab, but unlike the swabs you can’t make your own.
…and Frenando – that’s pretty scary stuff! The eclipse fluid and DIY swabs can be had for ~$10. It’s more than Scotch tape but not much, and a whole lot less than repairing a sensor.
I use a fluide to cleane my CCD named “ECLIPSE” it’s really great and i think the solution
I own a small compressor with a pressure regulator and a moisture trap which I use with a small Aztek air brush. It’s not the type used by auto spray painters, it’s much smaller than that, I use it for spraying model aircraft.
I’m wondering if that would be safe to use at say around 10-15 psi for blowing dust off the sensor? Has anyone tried this method? Any tips??
I’m with Fernando. I just cleaned my 5D with Scotch Tape. I’ve been cleaning my lenses (filters really), MacBook screens and my Apple Cinema display with Scotch Tape for years now. It lifts everything away. After all you are not cleaning the sensor but rather the glass over the sensor.
I learned the tape trick years ago on a photo internship from an old timer.
The other beautiful thing about the tape method is there is no rubbing the sensor which means no chance of scratches.
The real trick is to use two pieces of tape. The first piece is the one that you will lay on the sensor glass. The other piece will overlap. If you just use one piece it curls and is tough to lay flat
on the sensor. The second piece adds stability to the cleaning piece of tape. If you flex the tape where they overlap so the sticky side is bowing out you can position it exactly where you want in on the sensor and lay it down. Then simply peel it up and the tape will take your dust bunny with it.
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