Sensor cleaning, nasty bunny

After the Henry's Exposure 2012 show, I decided to perform a wet cleaning on my sensor.

While I was at the show, I had my lens cleaned at this one booth for free (and they gave away a free Lenspen FilterKleaner.)  I did not know they would try to clean my sensor as well.  Well, they did.  They showed me their 6x magnification loupe with built-in LEDs.  The loupe is actually pretty cool.  It has an opening for a special lens pen to be inserted to clean the sensor.

Crop of image:  a persistent blob on my sensor!

I knew my sensor was probably dirty.  I hadn't cleaned it for a while and I have taken my camera to many dusty places and have switched lenses many times over.  So, I was not surprised to see tiny dust bunnies through the loupe.  They went to clean my sensor and I was really hoping it'd actually work, but unfortunately not.  The pen they used only smeared the dust bunnies and might have added more dust or some kind of residues from the cleaning tip.  After a couple of minutes, I told them "it's ok ... I'll do a wet cleaning." :-)  I'm sure they appreciated that.

Anyways, I went out to buy the Pec Pad sheets I mentioned a few months ago from Vistek.  The 100 sheets of Pec Pad came out to $14.68, including tax.  Each sheet can be cut in half and each half can be used two or three times by adjusting the sheet to use different parts of it--I used each half only twice.  This was the Copper Hill method.

With the Pec Pad sheets, I performed the cleaning four times.  There was one dust bunny that persists.  I still cannot clean it.  It appears in the lower left corner of the image, so on the sensor (looking from the front) it should be in the upper right corner.  I scrubbed the area a few times over but the dust hangs on.  I think I will get a loupe to take a closer look at the sensor.

UPDATE:  I ended up ordering a cheap 7x loupe from eBay.  The loupe has six LEDs.  With it, I'll be able to see what that dust bunny is.  I hope it's not between the sensor filter and the sensor itself!