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!

Pec-Pad for sensor wet cleaning

After reading many articles on the web about the Pec-Pad wipes, I am convinced the Sensor Swabs used to perform web cleaning of the CCD/CMOS sensors are just way over-priced.  Pec-Pad wipes will do and have done very well cleaning sensors over many years.  I just started using the Copper Hill method a week ago, and I am quite pleased with the result.  While I cannot recommend it to anyone, because of liability issues, I will certainly keep on using it for my own cleaning.  (Sending my camera in to Nikon for wet cleaning will easily set me back $50, and that's not yet including shipping and handling charges.)

The oddest things I found though ... I cannot find the Pec-Pad wipes on Henry's website.  In fact, there are only two sources for Pec-Pad wipes I can find in Canada:  on amazon.ca and at Vistek's.  The Pec-Pad 100 4x4 package sold through amazon.ca would cost me over $20 including tax and shipping.  I will just drop by Vistek's to pick one up for about $15 including tax.

It really sucks if you live too far away from a major city and would have to order these items online in Canada, but it sure beats $50 and time lost leaving your camera with Nikon.  If you follow the Copper Hill method however, just know it's not sanctioned by Nikon/Canon, so do so at your own risk.

Copper Hill Sensor Swipe

The Henry's Exposure Show is now over.  I attended the show yesterday for about five hours.  It was good.  I walked out of the show with two Copper Hill Sensor Swipe kits for wet sensor cleaning, that I purchased for $2 each from Henry's clearance section (Henry's used to sell them for $25 each!!).

A Copper Hill Sensor Swipe kit comes with an 18mm swab and a PecPad sheet.  The PecPad sheet was wrapped around the swab ready for use out of the bag, and the 18mm width of the swab was perfect for the D7000 sensor as it covers pretty the entire height of the sensor.  I used my old sensor cleaning solution I bought from Aden Camera a while ago and applied a few drops onto the PedPad.  One swipe across the sensor almost did the job--my dust bunnies were well bonded to the surface.  I had to repeat the process one more time to get a perfectly clean sensor.  (The process involved swiping across the sensor with one side of the PecPad, and then go back (or go over in the same direction) with the other side of the PecPad.)

On the second attempt, because you are not supposed to be re-using the same side of the PecPad, I decided to unwrap the PecPad and reposition the swab at a different location on the PecPad.  It occurred to me then that the PecPad is held together with tape.  Uh, yeah, tape.  Well, that was stupid I thought.  Now, I can no longer use a whole section of the PecPad covered by the tape because of potential adhesive debris left on the PecPad.  What I could do though now, is to use the other side of the PecPad and cut the PecPad into disposable strips.

I will not follow the steps given on the instruction sheet that came with the kit.  Instead, on Copper Hill's website, there are these better instructions:  http://www.copperhillimages.com/index.php?pr=Tutorials2.  Basically, you cut the PecPad into strips.  After an application, throw the strips away.

http://www.copperhillimages.com/images/StripPrep.jpg