Visible Dust Product for sensor cleaning

Ann McRae

www.visibledust.com

Anyone with experience? They are located here, so I think I'll give 'em a try.

ann

claudermilk

I haven't used their products--I find the pricing more than a little ridiculous. Intead, I use the copperhill kit ( http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/ccd_cleaning )--same concept, much lower price. Works great.

wxwax

Prices are insane, product works. I haven't bought the little spinner motor yet, but it's a big step forward from buying canisters of compressed air.

pathfinder

For dry cleaning of a sensor, the sensor brushes from Visible Dust work well.

Can you wash a fine camel hair cosmetic brush and achieve the same thing?? Maybe..... But I don't want to spend my time washing and cleaning and testing a brush, I just want to use it without harming my camera.

If you need to wet clean the sensor with Methyl Alcohol, I use Sensor Swabs and Eclipse, because they work and I do not want to risk scratching the aa-filter over my sensors.

Nikolai

Dear Ann,

Ann McRae wrote:

www.visibledust.com
Anyone with experience? They are located here, so I think I'll give 'em a try.
ann

I haven't used this particular product, but an engineer inside me tells me that pretty much any tool will do.

All the cleaning kits I have researched essentially come out with some or all of the following tools:

Dust Blowers
Something that would use an air stream to blow off the particle that are light enough which didn't stick yet.
Important things to watch for are:

• Air temperature
  Do *NOT* use "canned" air. It gets very cold when it expands and, as a result, it gets extremely moist. And the moisture is what you do not want on your sensor...
• Separate intake and outlet
  You don't want the dust you just blew out of the sensor being sucked into the device and redistributed back to the sensor area.
• Air pressure
  I mean - the bigger the better. Of course we're not talking Cat5 Hurricanes, but under the normal conditions you do want to blow really hard..

However simplistic this may seem, I found out that this is a very effective tool for a "preventive maintenance" kinda things. I'm using a Rocket Blower similar to this one. I have a small version that lives in my backpack, and I'm thinking of getting a larger size.
After I realized its effectiveness, I have started to use it routinely when I'm changing lenses. Just a few seconds every now and then can get you a long way until you really need to use more drastic methods.

Brushes
This is a next tool after the blower. It's still dry, but it gets to actually contact your sensor's protective glass plate.
Important things to watch for are:

• Softness
  While it's relatively hard to scratch a glass, you don't really want to insist on doing so..
• Hair Loss
  You don't want to replace a tiny dust particle with a huge hair strand from the brush that was not properly glued
• Electrostatics
  Brushes, unfortunately, are famous for generating static charges. Just Like with the air getting colder and wetter when expanding, a friction between hundreds of strands made of insulating material (and you're don't really want to use a metal brush on your sensor:-) generates static electricity. Some materials less than the others, but they all do. It's a pure law of physics.
  Once generated, the charge goes to the protective glass layer, which immediately becomes charged, thus attracting the dust..:cry

Since all those problems, however subtle they may be, are "built-in" to all the brushes, I decided for myself to not use this method, unless I have no other choice.

Swabs
Arguably the most power, most complicated and most expensive of all other types, they come in a huge variety of shapes, materials and solution formula used.
Essentially, you're mopping the sensor (uhm, I mean its protective glass layer:-). Now, the things to watch for:

• Stick
  Usually it's nice to have the width of your stick matching your sensor, so you can minimize the number of "rounds". You also don't want to it to be made of something that could damage the surface, should they accidentally come into a direct contact.
• Fabric Material
  Essentially, it should not leave any of its parts on the floor (I mean, sensor) while mopping.
• Cleaning Formula
  It should not leave any traces after it dries. It should not react chemically with any camera parts (luckily, glass is very inert). And of course, it should actually dissolve and facilitate to remove the dirt and grease from the surface, otherwise why would anyone use it in the first place.

Since this is a wet method, static electricity is usually not a problem.

---

Now, which one to choose? As always, it's a hard question. Some people swear by the copperhill method. I'm using way less expensive and more simple one (Sensor Swabs and Eclipse, DavidTO recommended it to me), which does the fine job, IMHO. After all, it cleans the dirt, what else could I ask?


Having said all that, I personally think that the visible dust product will work, however it seems outrageously expensive. You can get similarly working kit for like $50..$70 total.
But it's also a choice between driving a Ferrari, driving a Corvett and driving a Camry All will get you from point A to point B, price range is obvious, now it's only a question of how cool do you want to look like?
While cleaning your sensor, that is...

HTH

ziggy53

OK, you're all going to think I'm looney, but I wound up getting a set of brushes, white nylon brushes, which I carefully cleaned and then tested on a mirror. It works great and cost me $10 for the three at the local W-Mart. (I only used the largest of the three.)

No problems with residual static, or residue, or scratching, or anything.

I found the basic instructions here:

http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_to/a_Brush_Your_Sensor/a_Brush_Your_Sensor.html

Good luck,

ziggy53

maddernc

Howdy

I have had my VisibleDust brushes for over a year now and am very happy with the results. Yes they do seem overpriced and I reckon you could get the same result from carefully selected and cleaned brushes from elsewhere. That said, where I live it costs 100 to get a sensor clean so the visible dust brushes soon pay for themselves. I also only use the thinner travel brush, which you charge up with a blower. Trying to get the right type of compressed air is too hard, the blower works fine. I also travel overseas abit with my gear so there is no way compressed air is getting on a plane.

Cain

pathfinder

I saw an ad for a vacumn cleaning kit for digtial SLRs in Shutterbug - Here is a link for it -

http://www.bkaphoto.com/detail.asp?section=Camera%20and%20Lens%20Accessories&cat=Cleaning%20Supplies&product=GCSC1000&search=yes

I think it uses compressed air through a venturi to create the vacumn.

Jeffro

Ann McRae wrote:

www.visibledust.com

Anyone with experience? They are located here, so I think I'll give 'em a try.

ann

I thought about it for quite sometime, but after not being all that pleased with the Sensor Swab cleanings, I decided to get the VisibleDust system. Two brushes, the spinner, and case. It was $110.00 I believe, a bit expensive? Maybe. But with two D-SLR's costing over 2-grand total, and thousands more in equipment, I figured I'd take a chance.

I got it in the mail, read the instuctions, and gave it a shot, on my 20D, which had a filfthy sensor. I gave it one swipe (as instructed), then a second...total time....2-minutes. Results....spotless. Was I happy? Your bet!:D

No more buying canned air. No more using Sensor Swabs and eclipse fluid to clean a simple spot. Which when shooting motocross every week in the summer seems to happen quite often.

I have been pleased, and the kit travels with me everywhere.

If you're on the fence, get off! Don't let little specs of dust ruin your f22 shots! You know if you don't clean the spots off you will soon be shooting everything at f4 or wider........

Nikolai

Interesting, Jim...

pathfinder wrote:

I saw an ad for a vacumn cleaning kit for digtial SLRs in Shutterbug - Here is a link for it -

http://www.bkaphoto.com/detail.asp?section=Camera%20and%20Lens%20Accessories&cat=Cleaning%20Supplies&product=GCSC1000&search=yes

I think it uses compressed air through a venturi to create the vacumn.

I guess it's a new breed: sucking "dirty" air instead of simply blowing it off in hope that most of it will get away from the sensor, at least for now...
I would be genuinely interested to see the results...
Thanks for the linky!

ziggy53

Regarding "Canned Air" and sensor cleaning:

There are safe products to use, and safe ways to use them. You try the following at your risk, because you can definitely do damage if you mess up. Do not use these instructions unless, and until, you are confidant about usage.

Practice on a common makeup mirror or similar. If you see any liquid on the mirror, you are not doing it correctly. Discontinue and find someone who can follow these directions.

---

Do not use just any compressed gas product, it must be something intended for photographic applications.

Two products I use and trust are:

Dust Away Gold
Dust Pro

They are both highly purified compressed and liquified gas, not air, and they are designed for things like photographic slides and negatives which are much more delicate than an anti-aliasing filter on a digital camera. I am sure there are other products on the market which also qualify for use.

Like Nik said, you must avoid getting the raw liquid from the can onto the imager section. To avoid this:

1) Do not shake the can prior to use. If you do shake the can, let it rest for several minutes before trying to use it.
2) Do not tilt the can. Hold the can vertically, which means holding the camera normally, and inserting the delivery tube part way into the camera body. Don't actually touch the tube to anything inside the body.
3) Use short bursts, around 1/2 second works well. Anything longer, and you risk actual liquid emitting from the tube. After a few blasts, let the can warm up before continuing.

In other words, you have to be extremely careful and attentive in your procedure. If you mess up, don't call me.