Sensor cleaning urgent

[Dave Vickers]

Hi chaps

I'm on a shoot in Singa, my sensor fogged over with humidity and revealed dirt. Any tips on how to clean it on the fly? I got Tokyo in a few days so I would greatly appreciate any ideas.

;)

[Chris Harding]

Hi Dave

Jody's issues are here. I would say you need the wipes plus the fluid if there is dirt there as well.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-nex...-cleaning.html

In Singapore there are many cam shops and they would stock the cleaners surely?

Chris

[Jody Arnott]

These are brilliant:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Solutions-Se...s=sensor+swabs

Unfortunately not cheap considering they are single use, but they do the job.

You'll need some sort of cleaning solution also:
Photographic Solutions Eclipse Lens and CCD Cleaning: Amazon.co.uk: Camera & Photo

[Peter Rush]

Jody I use the same - they are good - for some reason the sensor on the EA50 does attract dust - I have to clean it before each wedding (once a week at the moment)

[Steven Digges]

I use the same swabs & fluid.

Peter, are you cleaning it routinely just for maintenance or checking it first? Once a week seems excessive to me? And I change lenses a lot. I know it is supposed to be safe but I still do it as little as possible. That means when I can see contamination by shooting the blue sky test etc.

Steve

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

I was wondering if it would affect the sensor surface if one cleaned it weekly?? I have yet to clean either sensor with swabs and fluids ..I give the sensors a puff of air now and again and always point the body down when changing lenses and haven't spotted anything untoward yet and both cams have been running for 14 months now!

What I really want to know however is how on earth would you know if your sensor has "fogged over" ..Can that occur where it becomes sorta "cloudy" ... Dave said his was fogged over with humidity but is that visible even with a loupe? Maybe a clean now and again is worth doing??

Chris

[Dave Vickers]

Thanks guys

Tellin ya, mine got a film of humidity over it in Singapore and it dried dirty. I've had no time at all to get to shops. The focus is really tough and it's lost done vibrancy. Peaking is inaccurate too. I'm in Tokyo now so if I see a shop I'll sign language some fluid! Thanks again.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Dave

Maybe this is a time to give my sensors a clean? Funnily enough my A-Cam was struggling a bit with focus on Saturday and it was very wet and cold!! With a loupe and some light can you actually see if your sensor has fogged over and dried dirty?? I guess a monthly clean wouldn't hurt the sensor ?

Chris

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Steven Digges

I use the same swabs & fluid.

Peter, are you cleaning it routinely just for maintenance or checking it first? Once a week seems excessive to me? And I change lenses a lot. I know it is supposed to be safe but I still do it as little as possible. That means when I can see contamination by shooting the blue sky test etc.

Steve

I check it first Steve - Point up at the sky so it fills the frame and move it around a little - can always guarantee a spot or two after a wedding. I think maybe I'm cleaning the sensor when I should really be blowing the dust off instead!

[Chris Harding]

I must admit I have yet to see any dots on a sky shot and that's after 14 months without a clean but always giving a puff with the rocket blower.

At my last wedding I suffered the same problems as Dave and only really thought about it when I read his post. It was a rainy, dull day but yes the footage is very lack lustre and I did notice that AF was struggling on CamA too (I shoot MF but let the camera find focus in auto then trim and lock it there) I was actually quite surprised when the display told me it had focussed at 50metres!!! I was probably 5 metres from the altar and 8 metres max from the front of the Church so something went wrong.

The camera still give a good image and sky shots don't show any dust particles BUT I still think the sensor has become clouded over from the wet weather or just time ...???

Anyway I ordered a cleaning kit from Visible Dust with the solution too so I'll try that out at the end of the week when it arrives.

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Chris,

I am with you. If I can't see it I don't touch it. Mine has only been swabbed once. I think some guys might be swabbing dust that can be blown off much easier.

Your lackluster image was much more likely to be the weather than a film on the sensor. Please let us know? I am only guessing.

But it sounds like Dave took a bad hit. It is amazing what CAN stay behind after evaporation of a fluid. Especially in Singapore.

Steve

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Steve

At LAST we have had a short period of blue sky this morning which didn't last very long but it did allow me to do a shot of the sky and voila I have nine black dots on the screen. The point here of course is that it probably would never be seen in video even with blue skies in the background. I have examined footage with blue sky and cannot see any defects in the sky at all yet the test does show I have dust so I will give it a wipe.

It's Dave's situation that concerns me more and that is simply how do you know if the sensor is fogged/smeared or such like ??? Dave only raised alarm bells in my head because my focus was playing stupid games showing wrong readings and my initial AF and focus peaking was not as perky as it usually is and that was inside the Church with reasonably good lighting. The overall image to me looked a bit lack lustre as well.

My cleaning kit will be here tomorrow so what I'll do is shoot a few minutes of similar footage before and after cleaning and compare them.

I still would like to know if there is any simple way you can look at the sensor and say "Yep, that looks pretty clean" I see you can get 7X loupes with LED lights built in from Visible Dust ....Using one of those does anyone know whether you can look at the magnified surface of the sensor and be able to tell if it has smudges/a dirty film or similar. It would be very reassuring to be able to give the sensor a quick look (like your lenses) and confirm that no problem exists.

Who here has actually looked at the sensor surface with a loupe????

Chris

[Jody Arnott]

Chris, I took my EA50 into my local camera shop a couple of months ago and borrowed their sensor loupe. It had a very handy light on it which made it easy to see the sensor surface in great detail. I was able to spot several specs of dust that I couldn't see with my naked eye.
However I'm not sure that I would buy one. Pointing the camera at a white wall or a blue sky and closing down the aperture makes it easy to spot any dust.

It's becoming apparent that the EA50's sensor is prone to holding onto dust. I never had this issue with any of my Canon DSLRs that have the sensor cleaning feature. I wish Sony had thought to implement a similar cleaning system.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Jody

I have a 3X Hoodman loupe but it has no built-in lights so you see nothing!! With the loupe can you also see smears and suchlike?? Yeah, I can get one for $149 but that's a lot of money to check your sensor surface. It is a shame that the Sony doesn't have an in-built cleaner like my Nikons also.

I always give the sensor a good few puffs before a wedding shoot but I'm not really worried about a few specks of dust as I have never seen anything on the footage. I just want to be able to check for stuff like what Dave encountered ...humidity and then gunk getting onto the sensor.

When you accidentally blew the French chalk out of your puffer onto the sensor could you see the stuff on there with the naked eye or did you have to do a sky test?? Before a wedding I normally just shoot a test clip of 6 seconds to make sure that everything is working but not really a sky test.

I guess the 9 dust specks over 14 months does indicate that one doesn't really need to clean every week but I cannot see any harm in doing a wet clean once a month and still giving the sensor a good puff of air before each shoot to dislodge any tiny specks?

BTW Jody ..what happened about the metabones adapter? did you get it working eventually???

Thanks for all the input!!

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Chris,

Everything is fine. You are not running around with a layer of gunk you were not aware of. This thread is going to spread hysteria faster than small pox and the price of Eclipse is going to triple by next week ;)

Steve