Spring Cleaning? In October?

Well yes – from time to time it’s a good idea to clean the muck off the sensor of your camera/s, and as the Circus Festival starts in 5 days time….I thought it best to be prepared.

I prefer the « wet » method of sensor cleaning – a couple of drops of cleaning fluid on the swab and a couple of gentle passes on the sensor.

The best way to check if the cleaning has got rid of all the muck is to take a photograph with your widest wide angle lens – in my case, I used my 14mm, stopped down to it’s minimum – f/22. Take a photo of the sky or a bright, even surface – much easier to see the blobs of muck. Using the minimum aperture means that the natural ‘diffraction’ which occurs at very small apertures will mean that the dust spots really stand out.

This is an example before the cleaning process. The dark spots are tiny pieces of dust. It saves a lot of post treatment to remove this rubbish before making pictures! (Click on the image to enlarge it)