Copper Hill Images Wet/Dry Kit
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The sensor on a digital camera is covered with a glass filter so you are actually cleaning a piece of glass but if you scratch this it will cost a few hundred dollars to fix so gentle and clean are important. This may sound like a job best left to the camera manufacturers or others who are adept at it but the cost for them to do work like this is close to what this kit would cost you. If you find yourself doing a cleaning every six months or even as long as a year between cleanings you are still going to be over the cost of the kit so purchasing a kit just makes sense.
The SensorSweep brush is another amazing tool for keeping your sensor from accumulating dust and getting rid of them for good with a few simple strokes on the vellum paper and then your sensor. The SensorSweep brush is a finely made brush with synthetic bristles made in India that are a better quality and designed for cleaning your sensitive camera sensors.
I have two DSLR cameras available to me with one belonging to my son and the other my new purchase of the Canon Rebel XSi that is a great camera. My son’s camera, a Canon Rebel XT, is also good but had some dust from almost a year of my use and I wanted to get it clean for him before returning it after my last use.
I received the SensorSweep and started in with that with great results. I started by taking a picture with a small aperture so I had some sort of reference in my cleaning and found the dust bunnies clinging for dear life to the insides of the camera. I read the directions for the SensorSweep from the kit, as well as all the tutorials from the Copper Hill Images site, and started in on the work.
The SensorSweep uses static electricity to get the dust to stick to the bristles of the brush and get them out of your camera. To charge the brushes bristles with static electricity you can brush them across the vellum paper or charge them by blowing on them with canned air or from a blower. I tried both methods, the vellum paper and a blower, and found that the vellum paper was just as easy to create enough of a charge to attract dust bunnies.
You can check out if you are charging the brush enough by using a tissue and tear it over a clean lens filter to see the dust on the filter and then practice your brushing technique before working on the real thing. After this practice I also wanted to make sure I had a completely clean brush so I washed it using the recommended technique from the instructions.
If you should need to clean the brush you use some distilled water and wash the brush with some mild detergent like Johnsons Baby Shampoo and water. It is important to use gentle soap without any oils so the brush is clean when using on your camera. I let it dry over the weekend to ensure no problems and did leave it covered with a cloth in a tray so no dust settled on it.
Once it was completely dry I ran it briskly across the vellum paper to garner a charge and swiped it across the sensor. The Canon has a setting for cleaning the sensor that pops the mirror out of the way until you power down the camera, just make sure you have a fresh battery or are on AC power.
I got most of the dust bunnies and tried a few more times but one stubborn one would not come off so it was on to the wet method. I was planning on doing this anyway so having something to actually clean was kind of nice. I read through all the directions again to refresh myself and started in here as well. You again open the camera so the mirror is out of the way and with the fresh PecPad on the SensorSwipe I dribbled a couple of drops of Eclipse onto the PecPad and wiped the sensor.