My new lens, sensor cleaner. DIY solution

<p>Hello everyone. I thought I'd post a little DIY project that I finished and tested this evening. I recently purchased a Nikon D600 kit (the $2k bundle during Christmas which included the 24-85 AFS lens). I love the camera very much. But, for the record I still love my D70 too. As many have noticed this camera's sensor seems to attract dust more than others. I wont go into that as its received much press already. Well...I got my first major dust bunny a few days ago. Its huge. It shows up even wide open.I have a rocket blower and a wet cleaning kit but thought I would try a new approach. As you can see from the pictures I used a bellows type foot blower with a pleated paper filter on the input vent. It worked absolutely great! The bellows allows for a much longer air stream and much greater control of where you actually point the nozzled VS. sqeezing a bulb and having the tip swing as you sqeeze. The input filter cleans the incoming air which unlike a bulb blows clean air onto the sensor. Now I did NOT blast the sensor. I used a very gentle but longer stream to clear away all the dust bunnies. I then used a slightly stronger air stream to clean the lens and lens caps. The bellows was $4.00 at the thrift store and the filter is a left over item from an air compressor. Works great and much better control. Again, dont blast away...gentle, continuous air stream. Next stop is negative cleaning and scanning. Good night all.<br /><br />You can see my contraption iin my photo.net gallery here:<br>

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=1048630</p>

 

<p>I want one! Neat job. It should work fine for negatives, although that's really more about humidity. When we lived in New Mexico the humidity often ran 20%-30%, and dust was a huge problem on my negs. Here in Florida, I just hang them to dry any old place, then blow them off. There's a strip of 120 negs in my enlarger that has been in the darkroom (bathroom) for days now, and I don't see one speck of dust on them. In N.M., the strip would have been covered w/ fine dust in just one day.</p>

<p>I've been just using a blower for sometime now. But I do have a wet clean kit as well, and have had to resort to it. I really don't like to use the wet clean, it's hard on my nerves, always takes mutiple tries, sometimes <em>adding</em> stuff, LOL. This is with a Canon 5D, but similar story.</p>

<p>One trick I follow when taking a test picture (f22, out of focus) is to just view it on the back LCD, and don't zoom in any more than looking at one quadrant of the pic. Any closer and you will start seeing more and more, but they tend to be minor enough to not show in finished pics.</p>

<p>Well got a Gateway timeout, and revisited and refreshed the page. So if this ends up a double post, can't say I didn't try...</p>

<p>I've been just using a blower for sometime now. But I do have a wet clean kit as well, and have had to resort to it. I really don't like to use the wet clean, it's hard on my nerves, always takes mutiple tries, sometimes <em>adding</em> stuff, LOL. This is with a Canon 5D, but similar story.</p>

<p>One trick I follow when taking a test picture (f22, out of focus) is to just view it on the back LCD, and don't zoom in any more than looking at one quadrant of the pic. Any closer and you will start seeing more and more, but they tend to be minor enough to not show in finished pics.</p>