Cleaning Digital Camera Image Sensors

Do you have marks on your digital images that you can't get rid of by cleaning your lens? One of the reasons for such smudges, blotches and blobs could be dust, little hairs or marks on your Image Sensors. It might be time to clean them. Some camera repairers offer image sensor cleaning services, but many find a do it yourself approach cheaper and more effective.

Cleaning Image Sensors is a delicate job that should be approached with real care. There are a variety of opinions on how to clean them so do some research first. Following are some of the best tips on the web on cleaning your image sensors.

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Luminous Landscapes - Understanding Digital SLR Sensor Cleaning tackles the tricky question of how to clean imaging sensors. Here is an excerpt from their detailed description (make sure you read the whole thing before very carefully proceeding) - 'Situate yourself at a table with a bright overhead light or gooseneck desk lamp. Set your camera so that it is in sensor cleaning mode with the sensor exposed. (Some cameras require that they be plugged into AC power for this). Using either a hand blower bulb or a CO2 blower gently blow away any lose visible dust. If you have a jewler's eye loup this can be helpful in seeing what you're doing. Don't over do it with blowing, and don't let anything touch the sensor. Never blow into the camera with your mouth.'

CCD/CMOS Cleaning is a comprehensive 7 part tutorial on cleaning CCD/CMOS image sensors using a variety of swabs and tools.

By Thom - Cleaning your CCD also tackles the topic of cleaning your CCD image sensor writing 'A lot has been written about different cleaning techniques, such as using an air compressor or a small turkey baster type of hand blower as suggested by Nikon, but eventually you'll find some dust that so stubbornly sticks to the CCD that it forces you to use the "wet method": a light swipe of a lint-free cloth that�s been wet with a small bit of methanol. The dampness grabs the dust and makes it adhere to the cloth rather than the filter. You use lint-free material because you don�t want to generate more specks to clean off (trust me on that one--I decided to see how bad a regular cloth would be, and ending up spending most of an afternoon trying to get rid of all the residual threads and spots left behind). Methanol is the liquid of choice as it is less prone to leaving water streaks behind (contrary to popular opinion, methanol can pick up water vapor, though it does so less readily than isopropyl alcohol).'

Cleaning the CCD Sensor on my Canon D60 writes - 'Warning: All my reading say not to use compressed air. The propellents chill the air, and the moisture from condensation can cause problems. Also, you can blow hard enough to damage the camera.'

Sensor Cleaning describes a variety of tools that can be used in the image sensor cleaning process.

Cleaning the CCD of your Nikon D100 also has some good advice - specifically for cleaning the image sensors on Nikon D100's

Photo.net tells how to check if you have a dirty image sensor before going on to explain what to do about it - 'If you don't know if your sensor is clean and want to check, here is how to do it. Put a lens on your camera, set focus to infinity, set exposure compensation to +1, set the aperture to its smallest value (largest number), at least f22, f32 if you have it. Now hold the camera in front a uniformly illuminated target and take a shot. Look at the image. Do you see dark spots? If so you have dust. '

CCD Cleaning tells the story of a photographer trapped on the side of a mountain with two snowflakes on his CCD image sensor and what he did about it.

This post is part of a larger article on Digital Camera Care Tips

Check out some of our other Digital Camera Tips:
- Digital Photography Composition 101
- Night and Low Light Digital Photography Tips
- Macro Digital Photography Tips
- Taking Images with Camera Phones Tips
- Depth of Field Tips
- Introduction to Photoblogging and Moblogging
- How to Choose a Digital Camera
- Histogram Tips

Posted by Darren in our Tips category on May 20, 2004

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