Water Spots on Sensor

[ken1953]

Is there a safe way to remove water spots from a sensor without sending it to the manufacturer? Question 2 is, I have a local shop that has a machine that he says cleans sensors, should I trust it? He is reputable and is an authorized dealer for Pentax and an authorized repair center for other cameras, but not Pentax. My main concern is for my warranty, and most manufacturers take so long to get cameras back, even for just a good cleaning. Any sage advice is greatly appreciated.

[SmartWombat]

How on earth did you get water spots inside the camera?

I send my expensive 1D bodies back to Canon if I can't clean out the dust with a blower.
I too care about the warranty.

The 20D I'm happy to clean myself with Sensor Swab if the blower won't shift it.
It's out of warranty and I could live without it if I had to, while Canon fixed my mistake.

[ken1953]

Well SW, I'm not totally sure it is water spots, but they appeared shortly after I shot a thunderstorm and stupidly changed lenses outside, although under a large awning. There were significant winds and lots of moisture blowing around, but I wasn't in direct rainfall. I've tried blowing it out many times hoping it was just dust, but to no avail. All I can think is some moisture seeped in while I changed the lens and mixed with a little dust on sensor. Lesson learned. BTW, what are sensor swabs? I was told never to touch anything to your sensor.

[SmartWombat]

Touching the filter over the sensor is the only way to clean it if the dust is stuck on.
That's why I don't do it to the 1D but will on the 20D.

I cringed when I saw a camera shop demonstrating cleaning at a show.
They had set up a filtered clean room and were doing cameras while you wait.
The took a pec-pad and a pair of metal tweezers and some eclipse fluid.
And wiped down the sensor !
Now I would have to be very much braver than I am now to use metal tools in the mirror/sensor chamber. Obviously they know exactly what they are doing, how much pressure to use, how to wrap it to prevent the tweezers causing damage.
But it's not something I would try !

I would use the pre packaged sensor swabs and Eclipse, or E2.
http://www.photosol.com/swabproduct.htm

[freygr]

There is a IR filter in front of most DSLR sensors. Us a damp lit free cloth over a cotton swab, and you have to lock up the mirror and have the lens of to get to the sensor.


No to: dripping cloth and force; you will be fine.

[another view]

The took a pec-pad and a pair of metal tweezers

I'd never dream of putting metal tweezers near the sensor...

A friend of mine has tried a bunch of different products but says that Dust Aid works the best. I bought a used D200 from him and it's fine. I'm not sure if Dust Aid is strong enough to take water spots off, but I'd probably start with the least powerful method and work my way up until it's fixed - or send it in to Pentax.

[SmartWombat]

Definitely has to be lint free, and scratch free.

There are lots of other products, there's a kind of vacuum cleaner thingy powered by compressed air, brushes, sticky plastic grabbers.

At PMA I watched someone at a dealer table cleaning a camera, and they went through all the products on the table ! Inspecting it with one of those sensor scopes at each step.
Rocket blower, vacuum sucker, speck grabber, Eclipse & swabs - and the final treatment worked.
For reasons of cost, I jump over all the intervening stages and go from blower to swab.

Or if under warranty - get it serviced.

[Mick Mick]

Is there a safe way to remove water spots from a sensor without sending it to the manufacturer? Question 2 is, I have a local shop that has a machine that he says cleans sensors, should I trust it? He is reputable and is an authorized dealer for Pentax and an authorized repair center for other cameras, but not Pentax. My main concern is for my warranty, and most manufacturers take so long to get cameras back, even for just a good cleaning. Any sage advice is greatly appreciated.

Is there a safe way to remove water spots from a sensor without sending it to the manufacturer? Question 2 is, I have a local shop that has a machine that he says cleans sensors, should I trust it? He is reputable and is an authorized dealer for Pentax and an authorized repair center for other cameras, but not Pentax. My main concern is for my warranty, and most manufacturers take so long to get cameras back, even for just a good cleaning. Any sage advice is greatly appreciated.

They may appear to look like water spots but they are more like to be dust spots which often look like droplets of water in your pictures due to the magnification.

I have a 1DS MKII and fortunately I have not had any such problems with the sensor but I also have a 20D (both Canon) as a back-up camera.

I had some terrible dust spots on my pictures taken with the 20D which looked, like you say 'water spots' and this is how I got rid of them...

You have to be brave first of all... but let me tell you now! Camera manufacturers always make out how delicate the sensor is to lull you into a false sense of security and hopefully send it to them for cleaning. Most modern digital SLR's today are very robust, including the sensor.

To clean my 20D sensor I got a standard cotton bud, placed the camera on a table and applying only the slightest amount of pressure (in fact hardly any) just so the cotton bud is touching the sensor with the weight of the bud itself, wiped the sensor from top right to top left and repeated the proceedure, right to left until covering the whole sensor.

Works like a dream, no fuss, no messing, no sending off to the manufacturer or shop. Takes only seconds to do.

Do make sure there is enough power in the batteries though as you do not want the shutter to closed on you while cleaning due to lack of power.

Be brave... It's not neurosurgery!

Check out my images before and after the clean,
The clean was carried out twice.

First 3 pictures show bad spots. (pics 1, 2, 3)
Next 3 pictures show odd spot near centre of image (pics 4, 5, 6)
Rest of pics (6) are after 2nd clean with cotton bud.(pics 7,8,9,10,11,12).

If you can't be bothered opening and looking at all the pics just look at the first and the last.

Here are the links to them on photobucket.

1. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/fc3bb0b7.jpg

2. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/e341fe7e.jpg

3. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/9a0d558c.jpg

4. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/716ac3db.jpg

5. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/68aae234.jpg

6. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/a6a7d468.jpg

7. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/7fc0d40b.jpg

8. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/66244e4c.jpg

9. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/662b4565.jpg

10. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/63ff9c0d.jpg

11. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/b80c0878.jpg

12. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/b825ab1f.jpg