NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Camera Talk => Topic started by: Arild on January 15, 2018, 12:26:05
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After some years the days have come.
my d750 badly need sensor clean
Is it possible to do it my self. I have no cleaning aid, only q tips and a can of compressed air.
What store in Trondheim does this at a reasonable price,
I aasked japan photo. I couldnt afford that.
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I'm afraid I don't know any cleaning facility to recommend. But at least I think that the canned compressed air is the first thing to avoid. If the air is released too strong, the can may spit water condensed by the abrupt lowering to the temperature. In the worse case, the pipe may be released from the nozzle and hit the sensor!
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I bought a cleaning kit , with swabs and the solution, it works well
For stubborn spots I may have to repeat more than once, I check how it worked by shooting the sky at f/16, and repeating.
Get a feeling how the swabs and solution work by cleaning another smooth surface before trying it on your camera, I do this on my phone screen, just for practice, as the solution my not evaporate and may leave streaks, how do you clean those? just another pass, with less solution on the swab
My D800 was purchased in 2012, I have cleaned the sensor three times eliminating all the spots and with no ill effects
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I see cleaning the sensor of a digital camera as equal to the annual maintenance service of my car. This is something that needs to be taken care of and often it is best to leave the task to the professionals. Same goes with checking of any camera misalignment, warped mounts etc. I let a qualified repair facility check up and clean my cameras on a fairly regular basis.
Neither canned air nor q-tips should be used on a digital sensor.
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As Bjørn, I let my brick and mortar Nikon shop do the work, they have a small workshop with a guy that has a Nikon France agreement for lenses. Since the D70, D200, D700 ,D3x and Df, I went with my own cleaning, but nowadays I give it to them as they also check for different parts of the camera. Once or twice a year I have a clean sensor.
I also have them clean and verify my old lenses, the guy opens them up and clean every glass, and screw them back tightly (I use a motorbike and the vibrations can slowly unscrew screws from camera and lenses). Again once every two or three years for the lenses as I give them in small batches of lenses.
The tarif is about 50€ for a sensor (same as Nikon Shop in Paris) and 60€ for each lens. It's worth it, in my view point ! I tend to have less and less specks on my sensor, maybe because my lenses are "clean" ;)
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Thom Hogan has a good article on sensor cleaning: http://www.dslrbodies.com/cameras/camera-articles/sensors/cleaning-your-sensor.html
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I will disagree a bit with Bjørn about the q-tips and canned gas, but they are definitely not the first choice for a first-time sensor cleaning job by an inexperienced operator.
Q-tips shed cotton fibers profusely, and the canned gas can, if improperly used, cause liquid condensation problems as Akira has noted.
If you expect to rarely need to clean the sensor (once in 2 or 3 years, etc), a 50 euro pro job is probably the way to go.
Combined with general camera calibration check: even better.
I shoot big empty skies often at f/11 or f/16, so I see the dust early, and have learned to clean the sensors myself...and yes, almost always use the canned gas and have on rare occasions used q-tips to solve specific problems.
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I let my sensors and lenses be cleaned by a Nikon repair facility once or twice a year.
I have it done as I do have my car being mended by professionals and my bicycles. No ambitions to do it myself.
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Lucky you being close to service facilities....
The cleaning cost in Trondheim is about usd 125. In addition my own travel costs. Worst of all, I have to show up early in the morning and wait for hours, eventually walk the city without any camera...
I just bought that Green Clean thing. These one time use sets with a wet spatula and spatula for full frame.
Five of these sets and a long sought Phottix wired Taimi costed usd 125 incl over night ship to my doorstep.
I couldnt resist that, I now need to get the courage to do it:)
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Arild, if the picture is one after you cleaned your sensor, I guess you went over your initial hesitation and performed a “wet clean”. I’m doing this for years, after a NPS service person teached me how to proceed (much along Thom Hogan’s procedure).
Not to forget, that the most important thing is to minimize the chances to let dust in; so be disciplined when changing lenses, having dust free bottom lens and body caps (I know, there are some other ways dust can make its way in..), etc...
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I bought a swab kit and wet cleaned last month.
If you can brush your teeth you can clean your sensor. ;D