advice for cleaning

I have trawled the internet and this forum and have seen plenty of articles about cleaning a camera sensor and the lenses. I just want to run my thought by here before I go and purchase anything.

I think the necessary equipment for cleaning are:

A Microfibre Cleaning Cloth
Some liquid like Visible Dust Lens Clean
A Rocket Air Blower or similar
Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly SD800 Pro Kit or similar??

Is this it? And can anyone suggest a good place to buy cleaning kit. Visible Dust seems to provide the majority of cleaning kist and seem to be widely accepted as the best but it is also a bit expensive for poor old me anyway. Are there any alternatives that as good but cheaper?
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I haven't used anything other than a rocket blower for my sensor.


For lenses I use a Lenspen, which is great for removing greasy fingermarks:

http://www.lenspen.com/?cPath=1&products_id=LP-1&tpid=146

Be very careful with liquid cleaners for your sensor - the K10D sensor can be damage by using the wrong liquid.

I have a rocket blower and an Arctic Butterfly for my DS (so a camera without built in sensor cleaning) and have never had to resort to a liquid cleaner. I suggest you start with the Arctic Butterfly or similar and only buy a liquid cleaner if you find you can't get the sensor clean without. But do check the liquid is right for the K10D sensor.

Ditto the above comment...

For the *ist-D I had to clean very frequently. Used Eclipse fluid, as well as dry & wet disposable brushes.

For the K10D I've only ever needed a rocket blower. Haven't yet had anything gunky enough to require a brush or fluid.
My usual action is - do the in-camera dust removal a couple of times and if that doesn't shift it then a blast with the rocket blower does the job. (The K10D has a special coating that is smoother than a normal sensor - allowing the dust to fall off. That's why you have to watch what fluids you use!)

HTH!
Matt

For the K10D use Pentax's own cleaning kit. This is a stick with a kind of tacky acrylic end which you press lightly agains the sensor which picks up any dust and then clean the stick of on one of the pack of tacky sheets provided. It works - I've used it. Very detailed instructions are provided and the translation into English is OK

Other dry cleaning methods should be OK - my first resort is a rocket blower and I only resourt to the sensor cleaning kit when that fails.

ON NO ACCOUNT USE FLUIDS unless you are absolutely certain they won't damage the special coating on the sensor - Pentax specifically warn about that somewhere...

Rocket blower for me, so far it's all I've needed. I also recently bought the "Sensorklear" pen - basically a smaller "lenspen" but haven't needed to use it yet. Don't like the sound of using liquids on the sensor

simon

Yep,

I agree.. my sensor got filthy.. and the Pentax kit did a sterling job. I've only had to give it a thorough clean once (or twice.. it's my age y'know) since. I think you get about 25 sheets with it, so it'll last a good few years at this rate. A quick blast with the rocket each lens change and you'll be good to go.

Cheers

Liam

Thanks you for all your comments. I really do not want to attempt cleaning the sensor myself and luckily I have to send the camera back anyway (because of the leaning pics!) so I will get a brand new camera with a brand new sensor. I don't even think my sensor needs cleaning at the moment anyway.

I have purchased a blower and come microfibre cloth to clean the lenses. I will keep monitoring the arctic butterfly on ebay and buy when I see a good deal (or when my sensor needs to be cleaned!).

Thanks again

I stumbled across another method today. Sounds interesting but definitely not for the faint hearted:
http://www.sensor-film.com/

Basically it's a polymer film that is applied in fluid form and then left to dry. After it dried you pull the film off (like sellotape).

Seems to work a treat and when reading the infos on the website I got the feeling that this guy is not BSing but giving all relevant information (i.e. including disadvantages) of the method.
I would give it a try if I had the power supply for the *istD (wouldn't like to see the shutter closing because the batteries are drained).

This sounds like a similar system that was sold for cleaning lenses. According to some who used that, it was fantastic providing the lens was metal bodied but it caused severe problems with plastic bodied lenses which is why it tended to disappear from the market. I would be careful with a system like this.

Kim

Yes, I would be as well!

Hi,

The following items have proved popular through our online shop.

Lens Pen
Giottos Rocket Air
Pentax CCD Sensor Cleaning Kit

Dan

For the K100 the manual just calls for a brushless blower for CCD cleaning? Has that not worked?

I just bought the Rocket Blower, best thing I bought, between that and the Artic Butterfly, my K10D is pronounced clean! I had some crap on the top of the focussing screen area, so had to remove that. Had a few moments of wondering whether I really want to do this .....

But this is what I would use. The blower got rid of mostly everything and the Butterfly did the rest.

I use the rocket blower and I have a good way of checking the sensor. I take a shot of my ceiling (white) with flash, ensuring I am at about 100mm on my 18-200 and out of focus (i.e manual focus) you won't get a locak anyway.

For me, this seems to show up the dust and dirty spots very well. I flip the mirror up, give a few good blows and then check again - repeat till no spots!