dirty sensor

[goodoneian]

earlier today i was messing around with my d40x at f/8 and i noticed there was what appeared to be a strand of hair on the top left of the picture. i took off my lens and flipped up the mirror, and sure enough theres a piece of hair on my sensor. what's the best way of getting rid of this? it's pretty annoying and i'd like to get rid of it as soon as possible but i don't have a sensor cleaning kit or blower. is there anything around my house i could use to get rid of this?

 

[dslrchat]

Take it to a Camera shop, or purchase sensor swabs to clean.
(take it to shop, ask to watch them clean and then purchase what will be needed for next time?)

 

[Miaow]

I've used a ball/bicycle hand-operated pump before - just have to give it a few gentle puffs of air and NOT give it a full power pump of air etc as compressed & canned air is no good for the sensor. I ended up having to get a sensor brush to get the dust on my sensor off as it was held on by static - I had a hair on it though and that did come off finally with air - took a few tries though. I did find though cause its hard using one of those hand pumps by yourself and hold the camera (ie you cant really lol) that you either need someone else to hold the camera or put it on a tripod to keep it still.

To actually see how dirty your sensor really is - put the appeture to something like F32 and point it at something white and evenly lit using about a 55mm focal length and unfocus completely (on manual focus)

This is also a good site to look at

http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/index.html

 

[goodoneian]

ah, thanks miaow. i hadn't even thought of using a hand pump. i found one in my garage and i got the hair off my first try luckily

i'm probably going to look into getting a sensor cleaning kit though now

 

[Miaow]

Good you got it off There's nothing more annoying I know than a hair (and dust) on your shots lol

 

[Rhys]

Been there. I blow dust with air from my lungs - a few deep breaths and blows to reduce moisture before blowing into the camera. Works a treat!

I also remember looking at dust spots on my photos and examining the sensor before finding the muck was on the front of the lens!

 

[Garbz]

Yes always try a gentle blow of air first. Physically touching your sensor should be the last resort. You can leave streaks with the cleaning solution.

Set it to cleaning mode, remove lens, turn upside down, and very very gently blow into the mount. Turn cleaning mode off, mount lens, test photo to see if it worked.

 

[goodoneian]

Been there. I blow dust with air from my lungs - a few deep breaths and blows to reduce moisture before blowing into the camera. Works a treat!

I also remember looking at dust spots on my photos and examining the sensor before finding the muck was on the front of the lens!

i was going to just blow on it using my mouth, but i thought i might get moisture on the censor which obviously wouldn't be good