matthewriggle

Sichuan Takin

Nikon D700 / Nikon Nikkor 70-200 F4

1/50", f8, ISO400

(Photo taken at The Wilds)

Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II / Lumix 25mm f1.7

1/500, f1.8, ISO200

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The CCD is the electronic light pickup for your digital camera. It is similar to what is in a camcorder, and turns analog light signals into an electronic signal that can be stored by the camera. Anyway, it is pretty important, and somewhat delicate. Looking in your profile, I see that you have a Nikon Coolpix 990. This is a "point and shoot" camera, which does not have replaceable lenses like an SLR camera. (http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?goingto=dtc_options&cat=1&grp=2&productNr=25045). It is pretty unlikely that your CCD would need cleaned, since you cannot remove the lens and expose it to dust.

In any case, I would not recommend that anyone outside of a camera shop clean a CCD, as the potential for disaster is there. If the camera shop breaks your camera, they can give you a new one. If you break it, you get to buy a new one. Just my .02

While I am certainly not a professional photographer, I only have a few complaints about my Sigma 70-300. In fact, most of my pictures on photo.net are ridiculed by people who have pictures of their dogs posted that are not square and often include part of the photographer's foot. But I digress . . .

My main issues with it are noise and it has a hard time with auto focus in low light conditions. Since I take most of my pics in manual focus mode, this doesn't really bother me much.

If you would like to judge its technical performance, check out my motorsports folder.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=393521

I believe that most or all of the pictures in there were taken with that lens. Please let me know if you would like to know more about it.