no fear

In this picture I have removed my lens, flipped the mirror out of the way and have exposed my precious sensor to the world. Not only that, now I'm poking it with a wet swab! I have obviously gone mad and have decided to destroy everything beutiful in the world, starting with my beloved D70.

Not quite.

As I mentioned on Sarah's post yesterday, there is a lot of FUD spread around about the cleaning of DSLR sensors. The process is simple and safe and if you do it yourself, not too expensive.

The sensor is covered by a glass filter, that is what gets cleaned when you 'clean your sensor'. It is fairly difficult to damage this sensor filter, they are quite tough.

Here is an article on cleaning your own sensor.

And here is a link to a company that makes the materials you need to clean the sensor and their guarantee that it won't melt your camera.

The cleaning materials cost $45 (not including blower, that's another $8), that will cover up to 12 cleanings.

It is very freeing to know that you can clean your own sensor, you stop worrying every time you change a lens.

I've cleaned my sensor with swabs and cleaning solution about half a dozen times in the past two years (I blow off the sensor more frequently). The camera not only still works, it is cleaner and it thanks me every time I do it.

When was the last time you did something nice for you camera?