dust

sorry terry just one of those things that niggle at me, and i know i should just leave it alone, which i will now that i have cleaned it and i will not be changing the lens so there should be no chance of dust getting in there i hope. sorry again guys.

Just looking at those original 'etch-o-sketch' shots, and they don't look like random patterns, they are line drawings of your room, I'm sure.

Rotate one of them 180 degrees, and crop out all the lens mount part of the image, then see if it looks familiar, with a bit of imagination.

Camera bag (rucksack) on a table?




The dust sensor tool will be expecting you to be pointing the lens at a blank surface, as it will be detecting contrast variations across the scene. Any contrast in this situation will be due to dust on the sensor. If you're not pointing it at a blank surface, it will detect and draw the contrast changes in the scene that you are pointing it at.

I suspect that this might be at least some of your trouble, but I apologise if I'm completely wrong.

Best thing to use is a clear blue sky, but try a fridge door, or a very clean white sheet of paper.

Dan

thanks dan that sounds fesable but i always keep lens cap on as im sure it states that in book.
well tryed white sheet of paper and fridge door on f22 on iso 100 and cant see nothing but i never noticed dust in first place, only just worried because the dust alert told me it was covered but i dont think i will worry about it till i can notice it in photos.

Didn't think that sounded right at all, so looked it up in the manual. Step 3 of the instructions on page 232 of the K200D manual says:

"Fully display a white wall or uniformly bright subject in the viewfinder and press the shutter release button fully."

One of the points in the 'Caution' section states:

"The exposure time may be extremely long when using the dust alert function. Note that if the direction of the lens is changed before processing is complete, dust will not be detected properly."

So basically, don't hand hold the camera when you're using dust alert. And point it at a white thing, don't leave the lens cap on.

Try it properly, and see how it works. Then if there's still a problem, think about returning another camera.

Dan

thanks daniel, i just did exactly what you said white piece of paper camera rested on work top and it gave the same result everytime, 1 little spec in the same place everytime so thanks all seems fine now.
it will teach me to read thing better, but thanks for looking and sorting out i just moved so i dont know where my book is and just remembered my sony a350 said leave the cap on so its my fault for doing the same but top marks dan and thanks once again, and sorry to all the people i bored to death on this subject but i got top advice so thanks.

No problem Scott, glad it's okay for you now. Hopefully this thread will be helpful for anyone else using the Dust Alert feature.

Dan

hope so dan once again thanks.

oh you found out why its greyed out, its because the cameras dust feature will only work in autofocus not manual.