Cleaning CCDs in field.

In emergencies, while holding the camera high and lenside pointing down on my face, I “whistle” soundlessly towards the sensor (when the shutter’s open, of course) to imitate a common rubber blower only with a constant airflow. That technique doesn’t kick out all the dirt, especially the stubborn specks at the edges and corners of the sensor. And if you make a mistake, saliva could get in there and then you’d need a Q-tip to clean that up. So be careful.

by shooting film.

There is a product called speck graber that I have had some luck with just be ever so gentle, but id try the blower bulb approach first.

Blower brush is good.  Also take a look at www.visibledust.com.  And if you are feeling brave, try the Eclipse optical cleaning system made by Photographic Solutions.  They have a thing called a Pec-Pad which come in various sizes to suit different sensors.

If you need any of this stuff sent over, we can work something out.

Thanks for the help, guys. I dug through my camera bag (which isn’t carryin cameras… just chargers and extension cords!) and found a little brush blower. I can also acquire some canned air from my my embed. So I may have solved this problem. Will drop everyone I line if it does or doesn’t work. 

WAIT NOOOOOOO, never use caned air!!! it can kill a CCD

i’d second being super careful with canned air, as it can freeze (specially when shaken and in balmy environments) the filter that is in front of the ccd. freezing leads to cracking, cracking leads to defectiveness, defectiveness leads to replacement of ccd, and replacement of ccd leads to a whole lot of unhappy. so be careful not to freeze it. my understanding is that some canned air has goey stuff in it (can’t quite remember why, i’ll assume preservative), so you might end up caking your ccd’s filter with a fine layer of goo. yummy, and probably not fun to get off.

In the field I’d think about a small brush along with the rubber blower bulb. The brush needs to be kept clean and dust-free in a plastic bag or similar, don’t use one you use for lens cleaning (I use a Lenspen for this anyway.) You can buy special brushes or use an artists or makeup brush if you wash out the size they usually have on them thoroughly, and any loose hairs, I think synthetic brushes are better than natural fibres. 

First try with the blower on its own, and if that doesn’t work, blast the brush a dozen or so times which will give the bristles a static charge, then do a single gentle stroke on the sensor. The more blasts on the brush and repeat the stroke.

Really stubborn stuff you need the pec pad and methanol method, using the pec pad wrapped around a flexible support, and just 1-3 drops of pure methanol. But I’d save that for when you are back at base.  My feature on cleaning sensors which gives more detail on all this starts at http://photography.about.com/od/digital/a/dslr_cleaning.htm

I don’t like the speck grabber, but there are some micropore headed sensor sticks that might be worth taking on location mentioned there too. 

Peter

First, check your camera’s manual. Some cameras have a special cleaning mode that turns the power off to the sensor so that it is not electrically charged and thus attracting the dust that you are trying to get rid of.

Ok ok… no canned air. I’ll use the blower. I don’t have a pec pad here. In fact, I’ve never heard of it. Is it worth having out here in the field? I also didn’t bring the camera manual with me. The cam is a D2H.

Oh totally off topic but I’ve found that baby wipes, or diaper wipes or whatever they’re called outside the States, are great for cleaning cameras. Seriously.

For field use, I’d stick with a good blower brush (like the Rocket from Giotto) and/or the Visible Dust brush.

I used a D1X and know that the camera had to be plugged in to an external AC power source before you could open it up to get access to the sensor.  Not sure if that is the same with the D2H.  There should be a menu option for sensor cleaning.  If you select it, it will tell you if you need to plug in or not.   Oh, here’s something I just Google’d - 

Sensor cleaning is no different with the new model than previous. Nikon disclaims all but blower bulb cleaning, and you can’t clean without an AC adapter. Yuck. This means that I have to travel with my extra cost AC adapter. Have Nikon engineers actually traveled with their products?

i just set the camera to bulb and make sure i have a fresh battery in the camera and i have a d2h

Hey Bill, I’m using the Artic Butterfly sensor brush by “Visible Dust” this trip. Seems to work pretty well on the big stuff. Gina and are heading your way so just shoot at f2.8 till we get there and you can try mine out. Drop me a sitrep when you get a chance. Best, JLee

I left my AC cord at home. Don’t really see a reason to have on here in Iraq… anyway. 

J, I’ll be at the Garden Spot sometime tomorrow. Thanks. See you two then.

How bad is the problem?  Dust, like a lot of things photography-related, is a bigger deal on the internet than on your sensor.

D70, D200 you can clean without AC adaptor, and I think other recent models. So Nikon did learn.

Peter

Preston… I’ll post an image on my gallery this evening so the problem can be seen. Ah the joys of switching lenses here.

Ok, this is an example of the dust problem on my CCD. Is it bad or bearable? Thanks.

For me, that needs some work on the sensor now, or a lot of work in Photoshop later.  I know which one I prefer….

Yeah… I think so too. What do you think of the photo itself?

The almost  monochromatic coloring (or lack thereof) makes this image more powerful.  There is a sense of isolation in the troops and a feeling of an approaching re-connection with the helo’s coming in.

Cool. Thanks, Mike. I liked this one as much as the top one on my blog. But the dust killed this one from being posted/transmitted.

Haha Nikon has engineeers?

Hi
I work a lot in dusty conditions and the best advice I ot from somwhere on the web was not to use canned air – it does leave deposits. Rather to use an Enema bulb – its a much better blower than small photo blowr bulbs ( it can be bit difficult to explain if it falls out of your bag )

Chris

..or use olympus e-series cameras, and forget the dust problem..

“an Enema bulb”

And you never know where else that may come in handy.