Blue skies, nothing but blue skies … crap!

Before

Want to see how much dust you have on your sensor? Go outside, stop down to f/22, take a shot of the clear blue sky, or perhaps a piece of white paper with your lens focused to infinity, come back in, open the image in PhotoShop, process it with Image -> Adjustments -> Auto Levels and be amazed!!!

Oh well, sensor dust is a fact of life. There’s just no way to prevent it. It’s time for another cleaning of the sensor. The last one that I did was in October. Nope, I don’t send my camera back to Nikon, I’m one of those intrepid do-it-yourselfers! This will be the 3rd time that I’ve cleaned my sensor and let me tell you, it’s not a big deal. After you’ve mastered the ‘art’, it takes about 6 minutes to do it and 5 minutes of that is getting setup to do the cleaning! My camera seems to only need cleaning about every 6 months, or so. Nikon has done a great job on the seals of the D2X. I’m not in very dusty environs very much, but I would say that I am a moderately heavy user of my camera.

As for cleaning, I’ve tried a couple of things. First, I tried the Visible Dust sensor brushes. These are very overpriced nylon brushes. They work fairly well for very loose dust particles. A word of caution: You have to be extremely careful with the brushes. If you ever let them touch anything other than your sensor, say your fingertips, they’re pretty much ruined. I know from experience. The oil wicks right onto the brush and it is no longer useful, except for leaving oil streaks on your sensor, which is NOT why I bought it! Sigh.

For those dust bunnies that refuse to move, direct contact is required with a cleaning solution. I prefer, instead, the basic sensor cleaning kit from Copperhill Images, which consists of a small bottle of Methanol, a 100 count pack of Pec Pads, and a small spatula measuring 14mm across at the tip.

My process is fairly simple, and as I said, take just a few minutes.

1. Turn off the A/C – Critical because you don’t want any air movement in the room where you are working.
2. Wipe down the work area with a damp cloth to remove any dust.
3. Wash my hands, face, and forearms to remove any dust or dead skin.
4. Don a shower cap to prevent anything from falling from my head. I normally shave my head bald, so that’s not an issue, but better safe.

5. Make sure that I have a fully charged battery in my camera. I don’t have an AC adapter.
6. Attach the remote release.
7. Turn off Long Exposure noise reduction!
8. Place the camera on bulb.
9. Prepare the sensor swab (spatula) with a new Pec Pad.
10. With the lens still in place, lock open the shutter with the remote.
11. Add 2 drops of Methanol to the swab.
12. Remove the lens.
13. Place the swab on the sensor. One swipe right, move down, one swipe left.
14. Remove swab
15. Replace lens.
16. Test: Go outside, change to aperture priority, take a shot of the sky at f/22.
17. Load test shot into Photoshop.
18. Image > Adjustments -> Auto Levels
19. If dust remains, repeat steps 8 – 18.

Note: It’s also helpful to have a nice bright light that you can direct into the chamber, like a desk lamp, to help you see what you are doing.

It looks like a lot of steps, but as I said, it really takes about 5 – 8 minutes. When you purchase the kit, or go to the website, he has full instructions on how to do it and all of the necessary precautions to take.

After

Should you do it yourself? If you’re the nervous sort and the thought of even looking at your sensor makes your head swoon, I’d say NO! However, if you can follow instructions, don’t like to have your camera away from home for a long time, and have fairly steady hands and decent eyesight, go for it. There is very little chance that you will damage the camera. Hey, the D2X cost me a pretty penny and, believe me, I don’t want to damage it!

This is a very gentle cleaning process. I’d say read the tutorial and decide for yourself if this is something that you want to tackle. If not, you can always send it back to the manufacturer and let them move the dust particles around for you!

Now I can continue my song … Nothing but blue skies do I see!