Making sense of DSLR sensor cleaning

Three months ago I cautiously used an air compressor to try and remove dust from my digital SLR CCD sensor. That it did very successfully, only to replace it with a fine coating of lubricating oil that I had not remotely suspected to be present.

This being a Pentax DSLR, and fearing the worst, I took it to the Pentax service centre in Langley near London. I was told that it could not be cleaned, it needed a new sensor and that I should right the camera off because replacing the sensor would cost more than a replacement camera.

And that I did - for three months anyway - until I started researching this area when I tried to clean my assistant Son's sensor with a blower brush carefully following the instructons in the Pentax manual. But the cleaning just made things worse - the dust that was there was gone, only to be replaced by a greater number of new particles....

Research on the web led me to a story of how someone in the USA had been through a similar experience. Apparently this blower brush (or at least the older cheaper versions of it) is notorious for blowing rubber particles onto the sensor. He took the camera to Canon who did not write it off but did give him a bill for about $300....

I did not tell Son about this (fearing it would freak her out, just a little!) but advised her to go and get it professionally cleaned. This she did - for £25 - and now all appears to be well. I promised to get a Pec Pads / Eclipse cleaning kit for the replacement Pentax I bought and to take care of hers.

But then I remembered the written off camera! So with nothing to lose and with an inkling that perhaps the service centre bods are not quite as expert as they are cut out to be, I went to work on my sensor. I first used Pec Pads folded around the smoothed off end of a flexible plastic knife to soak up the excesss droplets. I then applied Eclipse using the same device, getting through about 12 Pec Pads. Finally I used a Sensor Swab with Eclipse to finish the job. After an hour I had a new camera!!!!

Yes, change the oil in your BMW and you may invalidate your warranty - but it is something you can do perfectly easily yourself with the right tools. Same goes for sensor cleaning - don't let the instruction manual / service centres freak you out into thinking that you can't do it yourself. Just get a cleaning kit and follow the instructions carefully.