Toronto Photography Meetup Group

does anybody know where to go if I wanted to have the sensor of my camera be clean.. I have a canon body...and how much do you think it would cost me? haven't done this yet....

OR should I just buy the cleaning kit from henrys or vistek and do it on my own...? is it advisable though for a first-timer..?

any advise is highly appreciated... thanks...

I got mine cleaned at vistek takes 40 minutes and costs 40 bucks

Same, I went to Vistek (in Mississauga, on a Sunday) and the guy did it right there in the store for around $40.00 (I bought extra stuff so I can't really remember the actual cost, but that sounds about right)

Don't go to Henrys, they don't do it in store so they have to keep your camera to send it out and IIRC it would have been closer to $100. (They probably just send them to vistek!)

I didn't want to bother learning, my friend Alex says it's easy to do yourself with some help from google, but apparently each camera (or maybe just each brand of camera) has a different sized sensor cleaning head...

http://www.copperhillimages.com/index.p ... l_Products

Put the $40 you save each time to better use.

eclipse works well, I personally got this

http://www.vistek.ca/store/DSLRAccessor ... eclip.aspx

which has little bit of everything. worked well and got rid of the damn oil residue. there are different sizes available for different cameras. cheaper in the US but only local store I was able to find them in was vistek. took 30 seconds to do the cleaning.

I got mine cleaned at Vistek for $40 as well.

I'd love to learn to do it myself but as every single thing I've ever tried to clean in my life has ended up dirtier than when I started, I've been staying away. I don't really want to destroy my sensor.

I thank you all for the advises... reading most of the comments and "verbal" advises from friends, most likely I'd buy some reliable sensor cleaning materials... right now I am doing "internet shopping" for one... I would likely to prefer if there is some magnifying glass to see the progress of the cleaning...

again a million thanks... keep the comments pouring... would appreciate for any links...

Copperhill has a magnifying glass (with LED) available. I have one, it works well. Order from them and you'll get a few treats too.

I was hesitant to clean my own sensor the first time but now that I've done it a few times there's really nothing to it. Just make sure you're working in a dust-free environment.

And this thread reminds me, I need to order the larger swab from Copperhill too.

I went with Seren Dipity's suggestion and ordered from Copper Hill. Mounted my camera on the tripod and went at it.

Took a couple of iterations, but haven't really needed to clean too often.

How do you get a dust free environment?

lol .. breath IN but not OUT

I lay out some felt (not sure if that's a smart move) on the table in the least dusty room in my house. Dig out a pair of latex gloves and try and not breathe into the sensor area. I use the Eclipse solution as well. Works great in removing any dirt/grease etc and leaves it streak free. Usually a couple passes cleans it up nicely.

They rape you on the price of swabs but I bought those packs of Visible dust for both FF and APS-H sizes before reading up on the Copperhill.

I use pec pads and a silicone spatula thing I trimmed. Works for me.

Tyler I am coming over to clean mine

you don't. At least you don't get one for a reasonable price.
The fact is you really don't need one for sensor cleaning. Just a clean desk in draft free, reasonably clean room should be good enough..

A smooth surface is easier to clean.
Felt attracts and retains dust. It's easy to get airborne the dust trapped in the felt just by handling stuff over the felt surface.

I came across this some time back with regard to hard disks

DOH!!

Our service staff is specially trained and we take full responsibility of the camera while it's in our possession, so there's no need to fear; if anything should happen to your camera while in our possession that caused damage to your camera we would see to it that it is repaired or replaced as required.

Your only challenge is getting noticed by one of the staff

What happens if I take my camera and steps out the store once its cleaned and it breaks?

I clean my own sensor since I work in a dust free environment...
I used a laminar flow hood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow_cabinet inside a clean room.

Absolutely. If your Camera equipment is damaged while in our service department we are responsible for it and would cover the cost of repair. Of course, if you have something go in to our service department we ask that you check your camera before leaving the service department to avoid any dispute.



This seems like an unlikely scenario, any issue with the camera would be evident when you check and test your camera before stepping out of the service department. However, in this unlikely circumstance our staff would ask the camera come back in for evaluation to ascertain the cause and action would be taken accordingly.



The way our service department in Toronto is set up makes it next to impossible for anyone to go unnoticed, and there's a bell!

For those of you who have ordered the kits from Copperhill, what's the difference between the PecPads and QuikStrips? Do you use them differently? Is one better than the other?

I use the PecPads. I believe the QuikStrips just make it easier since you don't have to fold over the PecPads and tape them on the SensorSwipe - they simply slip on (still have to tape them). Not a big deal to me in any case.

Bullshit! Absolute bullshit.

Unlikely, but not impossible. I brought my D70 to the downtown location in late 2008 for a sensor cleaning. It wasn't done on-site, as I'm not sure they could do it internally at the time. As soon as the camera was ready I came in and picked it up, which was a Friday evening. Perhaps my fault for not testing it out right at the store, but I thought I was dealing with professionals, so I wouldn't need to.

I hopped onto the streetcar to head home, took out my camera and took a shot, only to have it make a strange sound. Couldn't take another picture and got an error message on the camera. It was after closing time and I wasn't coming back into the city that weekend, so I called the next day and they said I should bring the camera in during the week to take a look. After they looked at it, it turned out the aperture was stuck halfway and wouldn't close. They priced out the repair around $200. I called several other Nikon repair shops to get quotes, but most were on par. They also did say it sounded fishy that I brought in an item for service, only to have something else go wrong with it immediately after. The service desk at Vistek showed me the test shot after they cleaned it, which looked fine, however, somewhere between that test shot and the shot I tried on the streetcar, the camera broke.

Well, I needed the camera back as I just had a baby, so I paid for the repair. I wasn't happy about it. They said they would do it for $150, but when you're not expecting to pay for a repair just after it was in their care, no real discount will make anyone happy.

Looking back at it, I'm still mad I didn't complain more about it, as I couldn't be without my camera for that long. I've actually been in the camera repair business in the late 90's/early 2000's with Black's, and I can say if this situation ever arose with Black's back then, the customer would not have paid for the repair. It's not worth losing a customer, and in this day/age when consumers have a much stronger voice thanks to social networking, stories like mine spread a lot faster. I haven't once voiced my complaint to them until now. Vistek has lost my business since and I don't know what it would take to win it back.

So, to answer the original poster's comment, yes its likely if your camera breaks the moment you leave a camera service shop (I can only comment on Vistek), the repair shop may deny responsibility.

I recommend cleaning it yourself, which is what my original search query lead me to here. Thanks for the Copperhill reco.

I've since purchased a Copperhill sensor cleaning kit and have cleaned the sensors on my 5D as well as my wife's XTi. It was my first time doing this and I found the process fairly simple and stress free.

I'm definitely glad that I took the plunge and will continue cleaning the sensors on my own.

I clean my sensors on both bodies with the sensor pen but for wet cleaning, I use the stuff from visible dust. For me, I am like some of the guys here and don't trust anyone but myself.

So I've got a sticky dust glob on my a700's sensor.

Does anyone know if ambient humidity will impact how well dust sticks to a sensor? I'm wondering if I can wait a bit until the weather improves and try with my hand air blower again, or if I should go down one of these routes.

My a700 body is my backup.

Do Vistek's posts violate TOU Use of the Forum #7?