Thank you Leica, no thank you Dust-Aid

[schnapshot]

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I use the Arctic Butterfly brushes

also HIGHLY recommend the Sensor Loupe.

 

I ordered the Arctic Butterfly and the loupe.

At the end I will have tried all solutions on the market ;-)

 

Thanks for the advice.

[schnapshot]

I. I now put E2 in a small Visible Dust bottle and that seems to fool them every time.

 

LOL. I must remeber this hint on my next trip ;-)

 

On my last trip I had a DSLR with sensor cleaning. So I did not bring any fluid cleaners for the trip.

[michali]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread I've tried several products and the Visible Dust products have given me the best results. I was extremely disappointed with the Eclipse products including their E2 solution, the residue of which had to be cleaned by using Visible Dust's "Smear Away" solution.

 

When on safari I try and minimize lens changes as much as possible, and keep the Tri-Elmars (WATE & MATE) mounted on the cameras for most of the time.

[diogenis]

Ok, as expected I had real good results from using the dust aid platinum. Clean was fast and good, leaving next to no dust particles behind. One or two I still see could be because of dust in the area, and because I had no magnifying glass to check closely.

Next I inspected the dust aid cleaning stripe: tried to work a lot its sticky substance in order to see if it leaves any sticky residues in the finger, but it didn't. Next I tried immersing it into water: still no residues.

 

Jaap, did you had any answer from Dust aid about your case?

[helged]

Hello,

after shooting with M9 for some months, its clear (and quite visible) that the sensor needs some cleaning. I understand that Visible Dust is popular/does work. There are quite some products listed on the Visible Dust site. Any suggestions for which products (loupe, swabs, liquids, etc) I should go for?

 

Thanks!

[wlaidlaw]

Hello,

after shooting with M9 for some months, its clear (and quite visible) that the sensor needs some cleaning. I understand that Visible Dust is popular/does work. There are quite some products listed on the Visible Dust site. Any suggestions for which products (loupe, swabs, liquids, etc) I should go for?

 

Thanks!

 

I think if you read this thread through in its entirety, you will find what you need. Like a number of other forum members, I have found the Visible Dust liquids less satisfactory than the much cheaper Eclipse E2. Otherwise you need size 1.0X swabs (the green are more aggressive than the orange), a blower to get the dust off first (a Rocket is just fine) and you may need corner swabs to get into the quite difficult to reach corners of the M9 sensor. These were not needed for the M8, whose smaller sensor filled less of the shutter aperture. Finally for between wet cleans, you may well find that a Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly brush will suffice. I have had very mixed reviews of the various vacuum devices.

 

Wilson

[Ecar]

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Hello,

after shooting with M9 for some months, its clear (and quite visible) that the sensor needs some cleaning. I understand that Visible Dust is popular/does work. There are quite some products listed on the Visible Dust site. Any suggestions for which products (loupe, swabs, liquids, etc) I should go for?

 

Thanks!

 

Arctic Butterfly may be all you need for normal dust, in combination with a sensor loupe, which really helps seeing where the dust/spots are and the results of your cleaning operations.

 

If dry cleaning is not sufficient, then green swabs have always worked for me. Never tried the orange ones. I prefer the full frame size (x1.0 for the M9), as smaller ones require multiple passes and therefore tend to leave streaks in my experience.

 

I always use the normal Sensor Clean liquid, unless there's serious gunk on the sensor, in which case I resort to VDust Plus. The cleaning power of the latter is higher, but I found it also tends to leave residual streaks. However, these streaks easily disappear after a subsequent pass with Sensor Clean. Never needed/used the Smear Away liquid.

[helged]

Wilson and Ecar, Im grateful for your advise - thanks!

[Sspector15]

While trying to sort through the pros and cons of cleaning techniques I ended up with a $134 Lens Pen. Actually, the Lens Pen was only $14, but the smudge it left cost me a professional cleaning. The comment I got was, "Were you trying to clean the sensor with your finger??!!"

 

The next week I got a note from Leica:

"to remove dust from the LEICA M9 sensor you can use the “Sensor Brush”.

 

This you will find under:

Products — DSLR sensor cleaning <http://www.visibledust.com/>

 

Also you can use afterwards a little bit “Isopropanol” with for example a Kodak ( or HAMA) lens clean paper."

 

Is the Sensor Brush actually the Arctic Butterfly....and then which particular configuration of Butterfly? Too many products to choose from.

 

Steve

[wlaidlaw]

While trying to sort through the pros and cons of cleaning techniques I ended up with a $134 Lens Pen. Actually, the Lens Pen was only $14, but the smudge it left cost me a professional cleaning. The comment I got was, "Were you trying to clean the sensor with your finger??!!"

 

The next week I got a note from Leica:

"to remove dust from the LEICA M9 sensor you can use the “Sensor Brush”.

 

This you will find under:

Products — DSLR sensor cleaning <http://www.visibledust.com/>

 

Also you can use afterwards a little bit “Isopropanol” with for example a Kodak ( or HAMA) lens clean paper."

 

Is the Sensor Brush actually the Arctic Butterfly....and then which particular configuration of Butterfly? Too many products to choose from.

 

Steve

 

Steve,

 

Like many others on this forum, I have happily been using the 724 Arctic Butterfly for a few years for M8 and now for M9. It now has LED lights on it (my old one doesn't), which could be an improvement. You can mount the HDF sensor brush on the 724 for more extreme cleaning. I am going to get one for Namibia.

 

Wilson