Dust on the sensor, part 2

Well, Cesar might have saved me a trip to the Nikon repair centre. I used his Optex "Digi-Blower Deluxe Blower" air blower to remove most of the dust on my sensor. I still have a few dust spots here and there after two operations but they are noticeable only at aperture setting f/16 or smaller. I tried to blow the dust out yet a couple more times this afternoon. It would appear that some dust got welded onto the low pass filter (in front of the sensor) so if you look at the before and after photo, you would see a few spots that remain. They are small and not obvious at all at a bigger aperture than f/16, but if I get annoyed with the few dust spots that remain I will have to take it to Nikon for a wet cleaning operation.

If you want to find out whether you have some dust on your sensor (on the filter actually), use a telephoto lens, set it to the smallest aperture possible (e.g. f/36) with the lens fully extended (zooming), then point and shoot a white piece of paper. It does not matter that the picture be in focus -- just shoot.

At f/36, the dust spots are very noticeable (see first photo, above left.) The colour (gradient) is uniform except for the dust spots. They look like black dots on the image.