luigi bertolotti Posted August 29, 2007 Share #1 Posted August 29, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I noticed an evident dot in this pic, and enlarging the area many other appeared : is this a problem of dust on the sensor ? In 3 months about, I haven't yet made a sensor cleaning... maybe it's time to... or can it be a more serious problem ? It's not dust on the lens... after this, I discovered similar patterns on a picture taken with a different lens. I hope it's just sensor to clean... as I said, I haven't yet done it : have some good advice about this operation ? [ATTACH]51827[/ATTACH] Crop of the above : dots appear "pixelated" a little, but it's jpg: in DNG they are "pure dots" [ATTACH]51828[/ATTACH] Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 29, 2007 Posted August 29, 2007 Hi luigi bertolotti, Take a look here DOTS - too many.... I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
dpattinson Posted August 29, 2007 Share #2 Posted August 29, 2007 Looks like dust to me Luigi, I imagine you shot these stopped down a bit. I had similar (and some worse) on mine and a cleaning fixed the problem. I don't think there is any cause for concern. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share #3 Posted August 30, 2007 Looks like dust to me Luigi, I imagine you shot these stopped down a bit. I had similar (and some worse) on mine and a cleaning fixed the problem. I don't think there is any cause for concern. Yes, I stopped down a little in Lightroom for the dots became more evident on blue sky: is it easy to make a good cleaning ? Is it worth to make a "cleaning test" shooting, say, a white sheet or so ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpattinson Posted August 30, 2007 Share #4 Posted August 30, 2007 basically if you stop down to f11 or more, and defocus the lens (ie, set to minimum focus) and point it at a clear sky, or pretty much anything that has no texture, then you will see the dust quite well. I have cleaned my sensor once, and probably will do so again soon as I have quite a bit of dust on there again. I can afford to be a little lazy as the vast majority of the shots I make are with the lens wide open, and rarely have much sky - and so the dust is not evident. I found that using the arctic butterfly tool, or a vacuum device did not remove all of the spots. I believe some of the stuff on my sensor was oil from the shutter, as it was round dots rather than dust particles. I bought a product called Green Clean, made in Austria, which included a vacuum device powered by compressed air (venturii effect), and a set of pre-wet swabs and dry swabs. I found this to be quite effective, others have recommended eclipse 2 solution on sensor wipes. You should probably try an arctic butterfly or vacuum device first, then if there is some stuff that will not move - use a swab. There are a bunch of posts here dealing with that, the gist of which is that the swab should be damp but not excessively so, and that you do need to apply some firm pressure while swabbing for it to be effective. Based on my experience, and some comments I've read in this forum, I intend to pick up a LED head-lamp and some magnifying glasses to simplify seeing and removing the dust. If you already have a magnifying lamp or similar then that shoudl work fine. It's a little hard to see what you are doing with normal overhead light and the naked eye. hth, David. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted August 30, 2007 Share #5 Posted August 30, 2007 Luigi-- I would consider doing wet cleaning for the first time. The Arctic Butterfly is highly recommended and much less expensive per cleaning, but it's only good for dust. If you haven't cleaned the sensor in three months' use, I'd say you're lucky. No need to do a dust test shot, because you've already shown us the dust. An illuminated magnifier to let you see the dust is a good idea--everyone who has one likes it; but at the moment, we can all see the dust. Leica recommends a blower--either a Giotto Rocket or something similar, or an enema syringe. And if that doesn't take care of the problem, then wet cleaning. Since the blower didn't take care of my initial cleaning, but wet cleaning did, I say just go ahead and start with wet cleaning. --HC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share #6 Posted August 30, 2007 Thanks a lot for the advices, David and Howard ! ... but I'm a poor Italian guy...what hell is the "Arctic Butterfly" you both quote ? I fear if I go to my (respectable) preferred photo eqip shop and ask for it... expecially if I trivially translate... would be treated like a man form Mars... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share #7 Posted August 30, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Sorry, stupid question when you have google at click-distance: now I know everything about this butterfly... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dspeltz Posted August 30, 2007 Share #8 Posted August 30, 2007 It took me about 3 months for the dust spots to appear as well. Here is a recommended approach to cleaning the sensor. 1. Use a simple blower first to remove what is loose. If more is needed after inspecting, 2. Use Arctic Butterfly (not allowing brush to touch sensor). Next, if needed, 3. Wet clean with something like Digital Duster or a Visible Dust product. Get a sensor scope for sure, one that has a built in light. I do not think you can do any of the above productively without one. It is amazing what you can see with it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philinflash Posted August 30, 2007 Share #9 Posted August 30, 2007 Waayyy too many dots. Perhaps the shutter mechanism is over-lubricated from new. I had the problem as have many others. Leica should warn comsumers about this or, even better, fix it. The saving grace is that you can "heal" those spots in PhotoShop or Adobe Bridge relatively easily. Philip Kozloff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share #10 Posted August 30, 2007 Waayyy too many dots. Perhaps the shutter mechanism is over-lubricated from new. I had the problem as have many others. Leica should warn comsumers about this or, even better, fix it. The saving grace is that you can "heal" those spots in PhotoShop or Adobe Bridge relatively easily. Philip Kozloff Yep, I feel not ashamed to admit that , crudely, is one of the best advantages of Digital. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.