Its always a good time to check that your camera is in good working order and that all important sensor is free from dust.
As any professional photographer will know, the build-up of dust on a DSLR sensor can have an adverse effect on the final shot, especially apparent in light areas of the scene when a small aperture is used and the image is viewed at a high resolution. DSLR sensors are a magnet for dust so professional maintenance is very important. While there are steps that can be taken to avoid exposure, dust build-up is inevitable, which is why sensor cleaning becomes necessary on a regular basis.
We are often asked how often sensor cleaning is needed. There is no one answer to this question as it depends on the frequency of use and working environment that your camera is exposed to. We recommend you check your sensor by taking a picture of a clear background or blue sky with a small f-stop and checking the image at 100% on a computer. This should be done before any important job, event or trip away to make sure you have clear images when it’s most important.
Here’s a handy tip of how to keep your sensor clean for longer.
Attach a double-sided sticky tab on the inside of your body cap and rear lens cap. If any large pieces of errant dust are floating around on the back of your lens, or in the mirror box, they will stick to the tab and not the sensor.
Be careful not to use high-tack sticky tape or you’ll have issues removing it from the inside of your cap when it needs changing.
Lithium-Ion rechargeable batteries are responsible for running just about every piece of powered kit in a photographer’s arsenal, and let’s face it, most of us have at least a couple of spare batteries with our cameras.
Li-ion batteries don’t suffer the same memory problems as the old NiCad versions used to, but they still need a certain degree of maintenance to ensure they keep running as long as possible.
Brand new batteries
These will often carry a small charge straight out of the box, but should be fully charged before using and will often take 3 or 4 charges before they reach maximum capacity.
Ongoing care
If you’re not using your camera for an extended period of time, it’s a good idea to remove the battery from your camera, fully charge the battery and store it separately. Left installed in the camera, minute amounts of current flow will discharge a battery over time.
Remember the little plastic cover that shipped with your battery? It’s there to keep any dirt from fouling the connectors and reduces the chances of anything touching the contacts and potentially shorting the battery.
Tempting though it is, try and avoid charging a battery that already shows a full charge; you will shorten its life unnecessarily.
Cold weather
In cold conditions, the battery may require frequent recharging even when fully charged. It’s a good idea to keep a fully-charged spare battery in a warm place and exchange as necessary when taking pictures in cold weather.
Lens cleaning is not a particularly difficult task, and it’s one we’ve all done on a regular basis.
Of course, if you’ve been following our Tips & Tricks series, you’ll have seen our recent post about keeping a UV filter on the front of your lens (where possible), and if you followed our advice then you’ll be minimising any potential damage to the front element anyway!
Either way, when you’re cleaning a lens, with or without protection on the front, certain precautions should be taken to avoid any accidental scratches.
There is a wealth of choice when it comes to lens cleaning materials. Our workshop technicians swear by disposable tissues rather than microfibre cloths, but if you keep them clean and wash them regularly, you shouldn’t have any issues
The most important thing to look out for is that there are no pieces of grit or sand on the front of the lens. If there are any, and you start to clean the lens, you’ll be grinding these into the glass and simply asking for scratches. Use a blower or hurricane brush – or if you’re very careful, compressed air – to remove these before you start.
The next step is to apply a few drops of lens cleaning fluid to the surface. There are a multitude of these liquids available, and any reputable brand will do. Using a soft lens tissue, carefully wipe the solution around the lens in a circular motion. many fluids have a high alcohol content and will evaporate almost immediately. Don’t worry if you see any smearing at this stage; the fluid is designed to dissolve any grease and once this is removed, you’ll often see light wipe marks on the surface.
The final stage is to polish the lens. Take a new lens tissue and lightly breathe on the lens surface. Wipe in a circular motion again and you should end up with a smear free surface. If any small pieces of fibre have come off the tissues, these can be removed with the blower.
Pretty straightforward really – just be careful to remove any grit before you start!
For over 30 years we have been providing professional photographers with an unrivalled service facility from our London workshop. Our large team of dedicated technicians have been professionally trained with many of them repairing cameras since the days of film. We’re keen to share our nuggets of information, gleaned through years of servicing top brand equipment and in this article we’ll focus specifically on looking after your camera’s sensor.
Sensor care
The sensor on your digital camera is arguably the most necessary, the most fragile and the most expensive component, and should therefore be looked after with care.
As we’re all painfully aware, dust is the bane of all digital photographers and it seems that no matter how careful you are when changing lenses, dust will creep in while you’re least expecting it.
In many cases, these dust marks are hidden by busy backgrounds and detail, but a good way to check is to photograph a white sheet of paper or a clear blue sky. Shoot using a mid to small aperture and even better if the shot is out of focus; you’re trying to capture the dust on the actual sensor, so a lack of detail in the image will actually help.
A shot from a Sony A7R II, clearly showing a hefty build up of dust
Professional sensor cleaning is just one of the services we offer at our London workshop (and Manchester and Leeds service counters), and although we don’t actively discourage photographers from cleaning their own sensors, we do see a lot of cameras that have suffered from less than perfect DIY efforts. And replacement sensors don’t come cheap.
An actual repair that arrived in our workshop recently | Canon EOS 5D with a clearly scratched sensor
We’re not trying to scare anyone off here, but we offer a professional sensor cleaning service that in many cases can be turned around in less than a day. Our team of technicians have had many years experience and can guarantee a thorough result.
If you are going to try and clean your sensor at home, please bear in mind the following precautions.
Compressed air
Under NO circumstances should you use compressed air on the sensor. It’s perfect for blowing dust off the exterior of your camera and lenses (although be careful near the glass), but pointing it near a sensor is asking for trouble.
A good reason why you should never use compressed air to clean a camera sensor. To get this shot, we tilted the can slightly, depressed the trigger and then expelled some more air with the can completely upright!
If the can is tilted even slightly – especially when full – propellant will be expelled and will land on your delicate sensor. Removing this gunk is not a task for the faint-hearted… We’ve even seen a case where the end of the nozzle was loose and actually hit the sensor with such force that it cracked the surface!
Dust prevention
There are some basic rules you can follow that will go some way to avoiding dust for as long as possible:
Always change lenses with the camera pointing down. Any larger pieces of dust that have collected in the mirror box should follow the rules of gravity and not end up on the sensor. It’s not a guaranteed solution but it will certainly help.
Make sure the rear elements of your lenses are free from dust. If any lens that you mount has dust on the rear element, you’re simply asking for it to end up on the sensor. The same rule applies to camera body caps.
Attach a double-sided sticky tab on the inside of your body cap and rear lens cap. If any large pieces of errant dust are floating around on the back of your lens, or in the mirror box, they will stick to the tab and not the sensor. We sell low-tack tabs, sourced specifically for this purpose, at just £5 for 10. They’re easy to apply and simple enough to remove when the stickiness has exhausted.
Sticky tabs on the inside of body and lens caps will help keep unwanted dust off the sensor
Vacuum your camera bag. It may seem obvious but a dirty camera bag can have a knock-on effect with dust issues. A bit of housework every couple of months can make a huge difference to keeping your kit spotless.
A clean camera bag will help reduce dust collecting on your lenses and sensor
Our workshop receives quite a few cameras for repair that don’t actually have anything wrong with them! More often than not, users have inadvertently set custom functions on their DSLRs that disable operations such as AF and shutter release from working correctly.
Of course, if your camera is behaving erratically, it may well have a genuine fault, but it’s definitely worth wiping any custom settings before you send it in to us.
If you’ve been following our Tips & Tricks series, you’ll have seen a post recently that described a simple way of backing up and restoring your camera settings on a spare memory card. This is, of course, a great way of getting your DSLR up & running after a full reset, but make sure you’re backing up and restoring a fully ‘working’ set of parameters!
Fortunately, resetting the camera settings back to a factory standard is a fairly straightforward process.
Nikon
On many Nikon DSLRs, there is handy shortcut accessible from a couple of exterior buttons that are marked with a small green dot. Pressing these two buttons simultaneously for a second or so will reset many of the camera settings back to factory standards. The position of these buttons does vary from model to model though:
D5 The [DRIVE] & [WB] buttons below the smaller rear LCD.
D4, D4s The [ISO] & [WB] buttons below the smaller rear LCD.
D850, D810, D800 & D500 The [+/-] & [QUAL] buttons on the top.
D750, D610, D600 The [+/-] button on the top of the camera and the [ISO] button the rear.
What we tend to find is that any custom functions will not be reset using the above procedure and you’ll need to go into menu to wipe these. Again, it varies from camera to camera!
On the high-end Nikons (D800 and above), you’ll need to reset the 4 Custom settings banks individually. Select the [A] bank and press the [DELETE] button. Repeat for [B,C & D] banks.
You’ll also need to reset the 4 shooting banks, following the same procedure as above.
The D750, D610 & D600 only have one custom settings bank so resetting is much easier, and again, only the one shooting bank.
Interestingly, the D5 & D4s seem to be the only cameras with a master reset option in the menu, but again, not all custom settings are cleared.
Canon
Canon users have it a bit easier when it comes to clearing errant settings. On the majority of professional grade bodies – certainly the 7D upwards – there are just two menu controls to access.
Activating these two options through the menu should return your Canon DSLR to its factory settings.
Sony
Sony users have it the easiest with the A7 & A9 cameras. A single menu option takes care of either wiping the camera settings, or performing a full factory reset and clearing absolutely every setting back to factory standard.
‘Camera Settings Reset’ will restore the standard shooting menu, whereas ‘Initialize’ will reset the entire camera back to factory standards. Unfortunately, Sony have not yet provided a facility for backing up and restoring settings, so be aware that you’ll have to sit down and go through every parameter, especially if you opted for the ‘Initialize’ option.
If anyone has any further suggestions for performing a camera reset, please feel free to share below.
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