I clean my 6d sensor with canned air, the bad kind and have no issues doing so

[FocusTester]

Dude! Don't use the compressed air can! It is not safe for the image sensor! It is like your breath blowing. The compressed air can has moist inside that expels and damages the image sensor in a little at a time.

What nonsense, air has moisture in it. People use Canon cameras in 100% relative humidity environments (with condensation, even). There is more B.S. to the perpetuated advice given on this topic than any other I've seen in a long time.

 

[FocusTester]

If nothing else, you're at least playing with fire by using can air. All it takes it a moment of carelessness and you can really mess up your camera. I've seen a sensor with canned air gunk on it, and it isn't pretty. You'd have to either find a wet cleaning solution or send it in for repairs.

On a side note, have you ever actually had an experience where there is enough dust on your sensor to effect your pictures?

I agree, you can damage parts of the camera due to carelessness. There is absolutely no denying this. But, if you are that worried and/or careless, you should leave sensor cleaning to Canon or a professional. This topic is for those of us that don't want to ship and/or take our camera in for a cleaning twice a month (or more).

With regard to whether sensor dust is visible, if you shoot at apertures of f/16 or greater and have any sky or other low-contrast areas in your images (i.e., landscape photography, anyone?) then yes, sensor dust is a major nuisance. As a matter of fact, large particles can even be seen blurred at f/11 .

 

[FocusTester]

Try this - take a metal close hanger, grab the bottom section. Bend it foward. Then backward. Then forward again. Repeat enough and see what happens. Let me save you the suspense, it snaps.

The shutter was never designed to live up to that kind of repeated stress. Every time you do your shortening the life of your shutter, and your camera.

I would tend to disagree here. First of all, we're not talking about a wire. Second of all, it is not clear that there is any strain on the shutter at all using this method. Certainly, we're not bending the shutter back and forth like a wire as you suggested. In fact, that is one of my questions: Is there any strain at all on an open and secured shutter from airflow into the sensor and/or slight pressure changes in the chamber. I have seen no evidence or convincing arguments that there is.

 

[robbins.photo]

Dude! Don't use the compressed air can! It is not safe for the image sensor! It is like your breath blowing. The compressed air can has moist inside that expels and damages the image sensor in a little at a time.

What nonsense, air has moisture in it. People use Canon cameras in 100% humidity environments (with condensation, even). There is more B.S. to the perpetuated advice given on this topic than any other I've seen in a long time.

Ok, well there is more than just moisture in a can of compressed air, but honestly the moisture content isn't the really the biggest concerns. The first of course is that even small dust particles propelled at high speeds are really bad for the sensor. Bad combination, bad idea. Second of course is that high pressure on the shutter blades is a terrible idea. Yes, they will probably (note the word probably) come back into shape at first as long as you don't use to long of a burst and keep the PSI at least somewhat under hurricane force by moving the can back a bit, but your stressing them in a way they were never designed to be stressed and honestly it's just a really terrible idea right there. Also keep in mind that the shutter blades are pretty small - which means that it really doesn't take a lot of air pressure for it to suddenly be a tremendous level of PSI of force (Pounds per square inch).

As another real world example, do you know why old vinyl records will usually have the popping and hissing sounds in them? The reason for that is that every time you play a record on a record player, the surface of the vinyl melts from the pressure of the needle and any dust particles or debris inside the groves of the record will actually melt into the surface. How can that be? Well your looking at the tracking weight of the needle being distributed onto the record with nothing but the tiny surface area of the needle to support that weight. When you work that out into pressure expressed as pounds per square inch, it's a pretty scary thing indeed.

Same thing happens when you hit those small, thin shutter blades with compressed air. To you it may not seem like much, but to those little blades it's more akin to hurricane force winds. It's just a really, really bad idea.

Then add in Boyle's law - see the thing about compressed air or any gas is that it expands you get a noticeable drop in temperature - which can be bad for your sensor but even worse for the shutter blades - again they were never designed to deal with that kind of stress. So yes, they'll probably hold up under that sort of abuse for a while, but eventully - well, eventually your looking at replacing your shutter long before you would normally have to because of all the abuse it's suffered.

This of course doesn't even mention the fact that you have to.. how was it you put it, "pre-spray" to get any buildup of gunk out of the way so your not saturating your shutter with that - and well I think you've come up with a cleaning procedure that will damage the shutter almost immediately if not done with tremendous care and even if done with tremendous care will probably shorten the life of the shutter considerably.

 

[tecboy]

Dude! Don't use the compressed air can! It is not safe for the image sensor! It is like your breath blowing. The compressed air can has moist inside that expels and damages the image sensor in a little at a time.

What nonsense, air has moisture in it. People use Canon cameras in 100% relative humidity environments (with condensation, even). There is more B.S. to the perpetuated advice given on this topic than any other I've seen in a long time.

Turn the air can upside down and empty all the liquid and see what will happen.

 

[GlennT]

Canned "air" is NOT compressed air. There is propellant in the can, and besides the pressure coming out of the can, the chemical propellant is what is expelled... NOT air. Whether or not the propellant expels as a vapor or liquid, it is there. I personally wouldn't risk using it for that reason alone.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[tecboy]

Canned "air" is NOT compressed air. There is propellant in the can, and besides the pressure coming out of the can, the chemical propellant is what is expelled... NOT air. Whether or not the propellant expels as a vapor or liquid, it is there. I personally wouldn't risk using it for that reason alone.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Oh yeah, that's right. I keep thinking as compressed air.

 

[robbins.photo]

Try this - take a metal close hanger, grab the bottom section. Bend it foward. Then backward. Then forward again. Repeat enough and see what happens. Let me save you the suspense, it snaps.

The shutter was never designed to live up to that kind of repeated stress. Every time you do your shortening the life of your shutter, and your camera.

I would tend to disagree here. First of all, we're not talking about a wire. Second of all, it is not clear that there is any strain on the shutter at all using this method. Certainly, we're not bending the shutter back and forth like a wire as you suggested. In fact, that is one of my questions: Is there any strain at all on an open and secured shutter from airflow into the sensor and/or slight pressure changes in the chamber. I have seen no evidence or convincing arguments that there is.

Your not? Hmm.. ok, you said you actually did this using another camera as a test. I'm taking it you didn't actually watch the shutter blades, or perhaps you didn't watch them closely enough? They aren't made out of high tensile titanium here - they are super thin and not really made to withstand any sort of abuse. You start firing compressed air inside the camera with the mirror up and yes, you are going to be stressing that shutter in a way that it was never designed to be stressed. You will be pushing on it and then it will be trying to return to it's original shape - do that enough times and eventually it won't return to it's original shape anymore. Do it with enough stress and eventually, yes, something will go so far as to snap.

In short what your doing here is a really horrible idea.

 

[pixmedic]

I used carb/choke cleaner to clean out my old vhs camcorder once.
It did not end well.

 

[Derrel]

There were some people back in the FUji SLR Talk days on dPreview, and these guys cleaned their S2 Pro d-slr sensors using Scotch brand Magic Tape, as I recall the standard, 1/2 inch wide "811" SKU number product....NOT kidding...they took a loop of the Scotch tape, and pressed it onto the AA filter array, and then pulled it off, and the tape removed any junk that was on the sensor. Look into it. Might be awesome, FocusTester. Scotch tape by the roll is surely cheaper than canned air.

Oh, by the way, my great great great grandfather was said to have picked his teeth with a Bowie knife...

 

[SCraig]

... There is more B.S. to the perpetuated advice given on this topic than any other I've seen in a long time.

Sorry, but you started this thread knowing it was going to be controversial. I know of nobody who uses canned air to clean their camera sensor and odds are good that you don't know anyone else either. It should come as no surprise that nobody is going to agree with your methods.

How you clean your cameras is entirely your choice. As I said, I'll stick to my Rocket Blower and an occasional wet swab.

 

[robbins.photo]

There were some people back in the FUji SLR Talk days on dPreview, and these guys cleaned their S2 Pro d-slr sensors using Scotch brand Magic Tape, as I recall the standard, 1/2 inch wide "811" SKU number product....NOT kidding...they took a loop of the Scotch tape, and pressed it onto the AA filter array, and then pulled it off, and the tape removed any junk that was on the sensor. Look into it. Might be awesome, FocusTester. Scotch tape by the roll is surely cheaper than canned air.

Oh, by the way, my great great great grandfather was said to have picked his teeth with a Bowie knife...

Grandpa Snaggletooth? Oh ya, heck of a guy. He used to clean his cameras the old fashioned way I'll bet. Climb up the top of a really tall tree and jump, let the wind clean them out as you fall. Now that's a man's man there.. lol

 

[tecboy]

Hmmmm...with all the comedians going on in this thread, the "OP" stills not convinced.

 

[robbins.photo]

Hmmmm...with all the comedians going on in this thread, the "OP" stills not convinced.

Well in the end SCraig is right, it's his camera and if he wants to destroy it that's his business. I think the point has been made well enough to anyone else who might be new to the DSLR world that this is not a good cleaning method to use. Hopefully the OP will reconsider as well, but you can only do what you can do.

 

[Derrel]

Scotch Tape Cleaning Method post on dPreview, one of multiple....

GPS - Scotch Tape cleaning method: Nikon DX SLR (D40-D90, D3000-D7100) Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

"Here is what I do................1. Use only Scotch Magic Tape no 810 or 811. .
2. Use only a clean piece of tape (check it visually for contamination and discard if necessary) and store the roll in a sealed plastic bag. Use it ONLY for this purpose and take care not to touch the surface to be used with your fingers or allow it to come into contact with anything else.
3. Cut a piece approximately 6" long. Fold it in half, "sticky" side facing out.
4. Perform a mirror lock-up, making sure you have a fully charged battery to avoid shut-down during cleaning
5. Make sure you work under a good light - a desk light is ideal. A magnifying>SNIP"

it goes on...check it out for yourself...