What steps to you take to clean your lenses and sensor

As for cleaning lenses and sensors, you have to figure out what works best for you.  Watching Youtube videos is a great way to start.  I HIGHLY recommend watching at least five, but closer to ten or more GOOD Youtube or Vimeo videos on how people clean each piece of equipment.  You want something that works well for YOU.

Do keep in mind, you should never use cotton swabs or canned air to clean either.  Cotton swabs fall apart and leave lint on and in your gear.  Canned air has a propellant in it that will cause anything it touches to become sticky.  Over time the challenging sensor to clean will become impossible.

As for me, here are the highlights of what I do.  Do keep in mind that I do not apply a lot of pressure.  I use more repetition to get smudges or dust lifted.  (Note: the links listed are meant to only better show you what I am talking about.  You may like these or want to use something else.)

Lenses:

1. Blow off the lens with a Rocket air blaster to knock off large dirt.
2. Gently wipe the lens from the outer to the center with a clean microfiber cloth.
3. I do not breathe on the glass.  Breathing on the glass can produce spit on the coating, plus it adds bacteria to your glass.  This bacteria can grow into something that eats at your non-glare coating.
4. If a smudge will not lift, I do put some lens cleaning solution on my cloth and start wiping gently again from edge to center.
5. I have used the Lens Pen to clean off fingerprints.  I do start with the brush end first and then carefully start by cleaning the outer edges of my lens and moving toward the center of the lens.

Sensor:

1. I make sure my battery is fully charged and that I am not in a hurry at all.  Cleaning a sensor will take time.  I go in when I don’t have anything else to do and am not in a hurry at all.
2. I clean my sensor in a clean bathroom.  I choose the bathroom because I run some water for a short while to bring the humidity level up a touch (NOT steamy) and thus help to bring down any dust.
3. I set my sensor cleaning solution and sensor swabs (note: this link is to full-frame sensors, if you have a cropped frame, get the correctly sized swabs) so that they are ready to go and can be used with one hand.  I will use at least three sensor swabs.  These prepped swabs will lay on the side of the sensor box with the end that is going into my camera hanging off the edge of the box so that they are not touching any surface.
4. Once I a ready, I will get the first sensor pad moist with the sensor cleaning solution.  Less moisture the better.
5. I then put my camera in sensor cleaning mode under the Menu options.
6. Keeping the camera body so that the opening is facing down, I take the lens off the camera.  I then inspect the lens to make sure it is clean and cover it with the proper cap.
7. Next, I pick up my camera so that the hole is still facing down and then I take the moist swab and place it on one edge of my sensor.  I then gently swipe the swab from left to right.
8. The camera is still facing down.  I am raising it above my head.
9. When I reach the other side, I gently move the swab down the sensor edge without lifting it off and then gently swipe back.
10. Again, I am not in a hurry.
11. I do this until I think the sensor is sufficiently moist.
12. I then place this moist swab down and pick up a new dry one.
13. I then do the same edge-to-edge swipe and then move down on the edge to swipe back to the first edge.
14. This is done until I see streaks.
15. When this happens, I move to the next dry swab and repeat until the sensor no longer shows streaks.
16. At this point, I put the clean lens back on the camera and retest it to make sure the dust is gone.
17. If it is, then I go on with my life.
18. Often it is not, so I repeat the process until the sensor is clean.

Here’s a video on how to take care of your camera by COOPH.

Do I need to clean my sensor or back element of my lens?

Question:
I can see some noise in my image, but my camera has an automatic sensor cleaner that cleans it on start up and shut down. Does that ‘only go so far’ or could this be smudges on my lens?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer:

Thank you for this work.

It looks like you completed this assignment pretty well and you have very little dust on your sensor!  That’s great!  What you circled is small dust, not noise.  Noise would spread differently on your sensor.  It is possible the dust is on the back element on your lens, http://photographylife.com/the-effect-of-dust-on-lens-bokeh.  My advice would be to make sure the back element is clean and reshoot the sky.  If the same dust shows up, then it is on your sensor.  Do know that the auto sensor cleaning are great, but not infallible.  They way they work is by shaking your camera’s sensor in an attempt to knock off the dust.  The dust that does fall, may land on a two sided sticky sheet of tape that runs along the side of the sensor.  It is possible for dust to stay on the sensor.

Your sensor is not too bad at this point.  You will want to watch this areas in images that has smooth surfaces.  When you do get to a point where you need to clean your sensor, be sure to do it in a manor that is safe for your camera.  As you know this will save you hours of time in the future from having to remove spots on your images and give you cleaner images to work with.  Stock houses do not accept images that have dust on them.  

If you do not already clean your sensor, please learn.  Watch at least five different videos on it.  You can also go to a pro camera store and have them teach you.  They will want to sell you some sensor cleaning stuff.  You want to buy it.  Do NOT use cotton swabs.  Do NOT use canned air – the propellant in it will cause your sensor cover to become sticky and make cleaning the sensor later MUCH harder to do.  

If you do not want to clean your sensor yourself, then go to a pro camera store and ask who in your area does the best job at cleaning sensors and have him/her do it.

A helpful suggestion is to place a reminder in your calendar to check your sensor again in six months time so that you can stay up to date with a clean, dust-free sensor.