ccd cleaning

twgreen3

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I need some suggestions on cleaning the ccd on my D70. Should I try this myself or leave it to someone who knows what they are doing? Where can I get some info on how do clean it? Thanks for your help
 
Here's another site

http://194.100.88.243/petteri/pont/How_to/a_Brush_Your_Sensor/a_Brush_Your_Sensor.html

I just cleaned my sensor for the first time. I had noticed a few specks in the sky of some landscape pics (small aperture shots). Nothing to troublesome, but it got me thinking about cleaning the sensor. Then I built a pinhole cap for my camera.

TIP: Don't use a pinhole on your DSLR unless you want to be haunted by the massive amount of dust on your sensor. The huge DOF shows every speck in great detail.

I tried the brush method first using a nylon artists' brush. I don't know if I didn't wash my brush well enough, or if I didn't rinse the soap out well enough, but test shots (with the pinhole) after I "cleaned" the sensor revealed that I had instead made a bunch of really nasty smears. So I put my DSLR away, went online to micro-tools.com and ordered some PEC pads and Eclipse cleaning fluid.

I tried the wet method when they arrived. I used a thin frosting spatula that I cut down to size, wrapped with a PEC pad, and a few drops of the methanol. This worked pretty good, although I was having problems with immediate recontamination of dust. Next time I will follow the suggestions on the sensor cleaning websites for creating a dust free (as much as possible) area. I had problems getting the dust right along the edges, so I carved a chopstick into a smaller tool to wrap a PEC pad around. I got the sensor pretty clean. I could see 2 dust specks with the pinhole, but they didn't show in a f/22 shot of the plain sky, so I figured it was good enough.

Next time I will start with the air blow method. You're not supposed to use canned air because of possible contaminants, but I got a foot pump for about $12 from micro-tools.com. I'm going to find a cleaner brush, or wash/rinse it better if I have to use a brush. And if I have too I still have plenty of PEC pads and Eclipse.

I think Hertz might have that fancy Olympus with the ultrasonic sensor cleaner? Hertz, if you do have that camera, how well does the ultrasonic cleaner work? that seems to me to be a much better idea than having to clean the sensor by touching it all the time.
 

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