D109 SENSOR CLEANING

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

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I thought I should post on here how I cleaned my sensor on the D-LUX109. After exhaustive searches online and this forum it looked like the only option to clean the sensor would be to send it to Leica Germany but as this is an old camera (but a brilliant one!) it didn't seem worth the expense as you can pick them up used for as little as £250. I had actually written this camera off as the dust spots were so bad and beyond a retouch, I also have a Leica Q but sometimes if you want just a throw around camera the Q is a bit bulky and prohibitive without a zoom lens.

So, if you have one of these and you have the same problem this was my fix.

I taped 7 plastic straws to the nozzle of my vacuum cleaner (Dyson), I then turned the camera to ON, extended the lens to its telephoto setting and squashed the straws flat and poked them down the side of the middle part of the lens.  I then taped them to the lens and turned the Dyson on to suck.  Whilst air is sucking through the straws I firmly banged the camera down on a thick rubber mat.  Checking the camera spots you could actually see they have made their way to the edge of the sensor.  I then firmly banged the camera down on to the mat again and the dust spots have gone.  I can now use this awesome little camera again.  

This is definitely a bit of a heath Robinson way of cleaning the sensor and banging the camera is probably not advisable but it worked.

Hope this helps if you are in the same predicament. A few shots taken with the 109 attached.  

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[wda]

Wonderfully clean and colourful images, John,. Thank you for sharing this information. 

[wda]

And welcome to the forum!

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

21 hours ago, wda said:

Wonderfully clean and colourful images, John,. Thank you for sharing this information. 

Thanks.  I hope this helps any other users that likely have the same issue that this camera has.  Other than dust it is a fantastic camera and the dynamic range on this thing is insane, although similar to the Q it is best to under expose by a stop to prevent burning out highlights which are simply unrecoverable.  The D-LUX 109 is a gem of a camera!

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