Mark Sykes wrote:- > > This was not condensation. Whatever it was did not want to go away. It had a > greasy feel as I cleaned it off. There is no way I would risk this thing on > a camera chip.
May I suggest the informed use of BluTak to clean a sensor surface free of dust. Open a fresh packet, and peel back the grease-proof paper without touching the BluTak. Cut a thin needle shaped sliver using a scrupulously clean pair of nail scissors and attach to a matchstick. Make a couple of dozen, and use a small-point light source to show up any dust on the sensor. Just align up the Blutak needle with a speck of dust and gently stab it once. That is, just tap it as gently as you can - once, and put the BluTak needle down, and pick up another one for a stab at the next speck of dust. I hope I explained that properly. Theory being that raw BluTak is completely grease and grit free and grips dust like nothing else. Compressed air will just blow dust around, and negative air vortices will drag more dust into the light chamber. I have used BluTak in the manner described for many years cleaning all manner of optics, and it works. Another attribute is that it does not in anyway alter the (ideally) neutral electrostatic environment of the light chamber. Wear latex gloves to keep everything grease free. While you are at it, you can pick up lens mount metal shavings with BluTak needles and then all the other stuff that wafts in via lens motors. I have never liked using pen-like blasters after once innocently trashing a camera mirror, and don't think they were ever invented with digital sensors in mind. You can if you wish, work over the entire camera with a big blob of BluTak to strip off dust and grime attracted by the camera's electrical field. This kind of physical handling actually helps to electrostatically earth the camera, thereby attracting even less dust during future use. Or.......if you don't want to touch the sensor in anyway, then don't. William Curwen PS: Couple of weeks ago, I was out walking with a camera and tripod, and my right foot went down a rabbit hole. That is, the ground started running towards my face very quickly with the immediate prospect of a broken limb in the making. As I am *always* falling over, I did my usual party trick and flung my Nikon F2 WITH tripod into the air out-of-my-face, pronto. Then pulled said foot out to land a perfect number one belly flop with everything intact. Windless, I laughed inanely at the camera which had landed brute face down, with the lens shade in pieces. In fact, it had snapped clean off. There was not a mark or a scratch to either camera or lens. This is because the lenshood is made of black cardboard and the size of a waste paper bin, held together by velcro and araldite, an adhesive which is strong but brittle - perfect for when you want it to sheer off at the right moment of impact stress. I am glad to say I was able to repair the damage very quickly. So now I am just a crash test dummy for a cardboard engineering faculty of one. =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
