Sensor cleaning

Any recommendations for a good sensor cleaning kit? I've another splodge on my K-70 sensor, I don't want to be paying to have it cleaned 2 or 3 times a year! From what I've read it's a matter of being careful and sensible. There are many kits on the market - who uses one and which?

A Delkin swab + fluid kit I have used.
Quite straight forward to do but as you say taking care and ensure you have a fully charged battery beforehand.

Are you sure it needs cleaning ? Have you tried a good rocket blower on it first?

I have been using digital SLR's for 12 years now and have never had a sensor cleaned.

I use an Artic Butterfly kit along with the very occasional swab.

Ditto. I also use a loupe occasionally to check for gunk the Butterfly didn't get, but I cant remember the last time I used a swab. I bought a swab kit from Chris at SRS when I was there.

My Nikon D810 is at Nikon for a clean - looks as though an Ebola victim has coughed in the shutter box....Yet, the rocket blowers suffice with the K-3 and K-1...and it's not as if the Nikon gets more use than the K-1...

Normally a rocket blower, occasionally Artic butterfly, swab very rarely.

I would also recommend trying a blower first, a couple of blasts with the lens mount facing down nearly always does the trick. No need to physically touch the sensor that way. Indeed I noticed a speck of dust on my shots from the weekend, must give it a blast.

For my K-50 I turned on the camera's sensor cleaning to trigger on power-on and off but I still got the occasional dust speck on the sensor. So I brought a sensor cleaning kit and a Giottos Rocket-Air blower, after about 2 years I've only needed to use the blower!

Regards
Mike

I have always tried to avoid performing a sensor clean with serious worries about the risks involved. Many years ago I did do a clean of the sensor in my K10D but until recently I had always got away with just using a blower.

However recently I noticed lots of spots appearing on images from my K-1 which I could not shift with the blower. I was also alarmed by the poor quality of a sensor clean performed by a local camera shop in Guildford on one of my friends Pentax cameras only a few weeks before so decided that I was going to have to perform a self clean of my K-1.

I bought a VSGO full frame sensor cleaning kit from Amazon of which I was fairly impressed (an APSC frame version is also available). The instructions went out of their way to get you to try again with a blower and when that failed doing a dry pass of the sensor with a cleaning swab (a single pass in one direction with the full width swab then turn the swab over and do a single pass in the other direction) and only if that failed using a new swap moistened with a little cleaning fluid.

In my case the dry pass completely fixed the problem and I felt relieved that I did not have to risk a wet clean. Possibly I was just lucky but I feel more confident about doing it again if necessary in the future.

Glyn

I too needed to clean my K50 sensor so decided I couldn’t go wrong with the Pentax sensor cleaning kit (£32.99) which worked fine. Previous to that I took the camera to LCE who charged around £20.00 but they pointed out you have to be extra careful with Pentax sensors because they are mounted on the floating mechanism as opposed to the fixed mount for Canon and Nikon. The Pentax kit comprises a sticky square bud which you just lightly touch the sensor with, and a set of disposable sheets you transfer any dust to.

Annoyingly, just after the LCE clean a new M42 adapter ring shed tiny black paint particles into the camera body, onto the sensor and behind the focusing screen - this is removable but wear lint free gloves as I found to my cost it is sensitive to finger marks which will show in the viewfinder, and are expensive to replace

So far, touch wood, the K1 seems to have a better inbuilt sensor clean mechanism.

I did a couple of sensor cleans on my K-x using the dry swabs on a stick that you drip a drop or two of cleaning fluid on...the remaining 3 or 4 i've used on my K-50 which seems to need a sensor wipe about once a year... (c5000 images). Was very tentative at first but now i've done it a few times i'm a bit more relaxed about it. Paid about £11 or £12 for the kit online so at about £2 a go its not bad really.

You don't need to touch the sensor with the Arctic Butterfly. Static does the work not a physical sweep.
I have always found it very effective, more so than a Rocket Blower.

Thanks for your advice, the Arctic Butterfly seems to be a popular choice. Is it worth getting the version with the lights, or is that a gimmick? I like the idea of being able to physically remove dust particles, rather than blowing them around - possibly to stay inside the camera!

It's worth being able to see the sensor clearly, the light is not a gimmick imo