Last summer I managed to get a lot of dust and crude on the view screen
of my K-3, so I wound up giving it a good cleaning with canned air. A
lot of the stuff went onto the sensor, so I blasted it as well without
thinking about it. Lo and behold, everything came out nice and clean. I
had always been skeptical about using canned air on a sensor, but after
this experience I figured that it was OK after all.
SO, today before going out to take snow flake photos I gave the K-01
sensor a good blast with a canned air. Looking at my first results - the
photos were incredibly spotty and speckled. At first I thought the glass
I shoot the crystals on was dirty, but then I noticed a few distinctive
spots and speckles that were on each and every frame. So I tested the
sensor for dust by putting on a 90mm macro lens, stopping down to f32,
and placing the camera face down on a light table.
Here's one of the snowflake shots that alerted me to the issue and the
sensor test on the light table:
http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php/imgp8714-jpg-1?blog=9
Click the images for a larger file.
I always figured that the problem with canned air would be that it would
burp up propellant onto the sensor - but in this case the issue is
apparently droplets of oil or something like that. Also - I have used
this can to "clean" several rolls of film before scanning. Maybe I
should go back and look for the spots because I never noticed them. My
guess is that the film grain hides any spots that appear.
I had a few old sensor swabs and a bottle of Eclipse E2 fluid here and
was able able to get the sensor cleaned up just fine. It has been years
since I did a wet cleaning of a camera sensor. The can of air I used
today was 3M, in the past I had used Office Depot's store brand (which
is what worked fine on the K-3 sensor). Since the canned air has worked
fine int he past, I guess it is simply a difference in quality between
brands or maybe I just held the can at the wrong angle today. At any
rate - I am not using canned air on sensors any more!
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