Digital Dirt!

[BJ]

I have only just committed to a digital underwater camera set-up and am seeking info wherever I can. I used to be a real (highly paid) photographer so I rang to ask one of my old contemporaries what he was doing. He made a point I had not thought of.

He has the latest Canon top-of-the-range digital camera. He said the problem he encounterd was dirt getting on the chip. Now he has finally got the chip clean he has decided to not interchange lenses and let more dirt in. This means buying a body for each and every lens.
Guess what? I then noticed I had some specks of dirt on the CCD of one of my cameras. I spent the morning cleaning it (swabs and Eclipse) because the only way to check is to shoot some grey paper and download the file on to a computer with CRT monitor. It's a time consuming business.

With film, any dirt gets moved each time the film is transported so it has never been a real problem. With a CCD it stays in the same place picture after picture and it's enlarged more than on film.

It's something I hadn't thought of. I might have to forego interchanging lenses too.

What's your experience?

[Tim Ingmire]

John,

This is are PITA. I bought a CCD cleaning kit a while ago after I got a speck on my CCD - it showed up just lovely in all my pics.

I now take real care when changing lenses and make the swap as quickly as possible - don't walk around the room without a lens in place. Since I've been taking more care when switching lenses I haven't had a problem.

[Keiron]

One tip that I really cannot stress enough and you simply are not going to believe me unless you try it yourself, is to always change lenses with the body upside down.

Now, don't believe, I wouldn't either unless I hadn't actually had an experience. With my last Canon digital body the sensor used to be rife with dust, until I read about this tip from another photographer. Now I change the lenses upside down and the dust problem is a minor niggle occasionally now rather than a major plague!

I use one of the speckgrabbers and methanol, exactly the same constition as the eclipse cleaning fluid and only £5 a gallon. Yes, a gallon, the only trouble is that there is no way you can use it all !! Might try flying model aircraft and using it as fuel!

Be careful whilst cleaning with swabs, you can actually scratch the sensor cover and then you are royally buggered, seen the results of a heavy-handed sensor clean. Warranty void

[AreRJ]

Isn't much to do about it, just have to keep cleaning..
No mather how careful you are when changing lenses, dust has its way to enter the body :-)

In my experience the problem is proportional with sensor size. The Nikon D1 has "nothing", the Canon 10D has some and the Canon 1Ds is a fancy vacuum cleaner.


-Are-

[schford]

Hey JB what did you / are you going with?

I just got me a Canon D20 with 17 to 85 lens also a 100 to 300 lens now just need to cough up for a wide angle one...

Stuart

[Keiron]

Originally Posted by AreRJ

Isn't much to do about it, just have to keep cleaning..

My personal experience is completely different, using two identical bodies and changing lenses upside down on one has resulted in considerably, and I mean considerably less dust on the sensor.

That's my experience for me to state my opinion on of course, you also may have run the identical experiment and reached a different conclusion, however, I doubt it.

[AreRJ]

Originally Posted by KeironO

My personal experience is completely different, using two identical bodies and changing lenses upside down on one has resulted in considerably, and I mean considerably less dust on the sensor.

That's my experience for me to state my opinion on of course, you also may have run the identical experiment and reached a different conclusion, however, I doubt it.

You get less dust on the sensor changing lenses upside down, but you will always have dust in the body moving around and ending up on the sensor. And when you have cleaned the sensor there's still dust hiding somewhere in the body. For me it seems like a bigger sensor uses more power and therefore attracts more dirt.

But then again, that's my experience. :-)

[Sofnolime]

I do a bit of freelance sport and press photography. Changing the lens with the camera face down will help, as will keeping a body cap on the camera at all times. But the one thing that has given me the biggest reduction of dust in cameras has been giving my bags a good hoover out once a month. You have no idea the amount of dust that collects in a camera bag/case.
One of the guy I work with also gives the camera/lens interface a blast with a can of compressed air before removing the lens.