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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
Hi everyone!
As you know, cleaning sensors has been a hot topic in this NG. I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Below, starting from my initial e-mail is the correspondence we exchanged. Although I have changed the order for clarity, I haven't altered anything (I still have the "originals"). Perhaps if many of us were to write to Canon to express their concern, Canon might consider something. In the meantime, as stated, I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Best regards to all! Marcel ---------------------------------------------------- *Initial querry* Hi! I bought my Rebel XT with a 17-85mm lens as well as a 70-300 mm Is USM recently. This cost me a lot of money. I find I have dust that I can't get rid of on my sensor. Canon only supports the fact that I should use a blower. I did. However, the dust won't go away. I cant afford to send the camera out to you every time this happens. It would cost me an arm and a leg since it seems I would have to do it often I would also be without my camera for long periods of time. Since these cameras are made to change lenses, surely there must be a safe way for me to clean the sensors. Please advise and please do NOT tell me to use a blower. It doesn't work! Thanks for any help you can give me. I was thrilled to have such a camera, but now, with such poor results, with big blobs on my photos, I'm less than ecstatic, believe me. Please advise. Marcel. _______________________________________________ *Initial answer* ----- Original Message ----- From: "Customer Support" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 PM Subject: Digital Camera / Digital Rebel XT - General Questions Dear Mr. Marcel Cossais Thank you for your allowing us to address your concerns regarding your Digital Rebel XT. Unfortunately, dust particles attracting to the surface of the imaging sensor is unique to all digital SLR cameras. Inevitably, dust will settle on the CMOS sensor and cleaning will be necessary. Such dust particles are usually only noticeably when shooting at small apertures i.e f/16, f/20, f/22, f/28, f/32. The amount of dust attracted to the sensor for the most part depends on the environment in which the camera is utilized and when lenses are interchanged. Most dust particles can be removed by using a blower brush following the instructions as provided in the instruction manual on a regular basis. However, more stubborn dust particles require professional cleaning at one our factory offices. For liability reasons, Canon does not recommend nor endorse any third-party cleaning accessories or procedures be used to clean the CMOS sensor, as this may lead to damages, rendering your camera unusable. It is recommended your Canon EOS camera be forwarded directly to our Factory Service facility to have the CMOS sensor professionally cleaned. Standard sensor cleaning is provided as a courtesy to customers and no charge applies for the cleaning of the imaging sensor. At your earliest convenience, you may forward your EOS camera to the nearest Factory location listed below. As you are not required to send any accessories; when forwarding your camera body, please be sure to remove the memory card, batteries and any other items from the camera. Be sure to include your name, street address (no P.O. boxes, please), daytime telephone number, copy of your bill of sale and a note requesting sensor cleaning be performed. As we do not provide RMA numbers, we suggest using a trackable and insurable service (i.e. UPS, Purolator, Priority Mail) to ship your equipment. Please package the camera very securely in a sturdy shipping box to prevent damage during shipment. CANON CANADA INC. 1400 Courtneypark Dr E Mississauga, ON, L5T1H1 Tel.: 905/795-2005 Fax: 905-795-2079 CANON CANADA INC. 2828 16 ST NE CALGARY, AB, T2E7K7 Tel.: 403/219-5900 Fax: 403/291-3586 Sincerely, Kirk M. Technical Support Representative Customer Information Centre Canon Canada Inc. http://www.canon.ca/digitalphotography __________________________________________ *my second e-mail to Canon's answer* Thank you for answering promptly, Kirk. I know about dust particles, etc. and I was aware that this might happen. However, the fact that "dust particles are usually only noticeably when shooting at small apertures i.e f/16, f/20, f/22, f/28, f/32" doesn't hold water. If you go to: http://celestart.com/images/publiques/spots-cloudy.jpg and http://celestart.com/images/publiques/spots-wall.jpg Look on the left on each photo, you will find that these spots are very noticeable at wide apertures. Check their exif's. These were taken on Av at f/5.0, 1/500 sec. The first one shows the spots even though it's very cloudy. The second is a wall at home and incandescent lighting. I have read the book as well as Canon's advice on the web and it simply doesn't do the trick. Those spots are staying where they are and won't go away. I'm not a newbie and I've had Canon lenses and cameras for a long time. I also do not reside in a dump full of dust. Finally, I'm very careful about my equipment. Yet, look at the sensor! I know Canon doesn't endorse cleaning the sensor for liability reasons. However, you must recognise that sensors will get dirty and blowers not be sufficient. No one can afford to send his/her camera to Canon every time the sensore resist cleaning, even though it's free. You have to pay for sending and getting back the camera along with insurance and be without the camera for a while. The "while" can be a few weeks. We do not all live in Toronto or Calgary. Please ask your bosses or Canon authorities to consider training people in various stores (such as Henry's where I bought many of my cameras) to clean sensors. We buy these cameras in order to change lenses. If every time we change a lens, dust gets onto the sensors (and believe me it will), we're not out of the woods. I believe other manufacturers give their customers a way do do so. It seems you're the only company to refuse helping out. You could at least indicate what you're using to clean sensors even though you may refuse to take liability for it. As it is, I have lots of leads, yet I'm not sure what I can use most safely. Recently, I talked with a photographer-journalist who's using 3 EOS of various models with L lenses. I asked him what he did. He answered he didn't know because his son was doing it for him on a regular basis. Finally, if your people can do it, we can learn Please, why don't you think about it? Perhaps you could run classes at different times in big stores which sell your products. I would gladly pay some money to learn. Think about it. Share this idea. You might even get noticed at Canon for introducing novel ideas. Regards, Marcel __________________________________________________ ______ *Canon's answer to my second e-mail* ----- Original Message ----- From: "Customer Support" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 5:37 PM Subject: Digital Camera / Digital Rebel XT - Dear Mr. Marcel Cossais Thank you for your additonal feedback on this issue. We have forwarded your concerns with respect to the cleaning of the CMOS sensor to the appropriate for their review. Your feedback and concerns on this issue are duely noted. Sincerely, Kirk M. Technical Support Representative Customer Information Centre Canon Canada Inc. ________________________________________________ *My parting words* ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcel" To: "Customer Support" Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 7:12 AM Subject: Digital Camera / Digital Rebel XT - Dear Mr. Kirk: Thank you for everything. I only hope I didn't get the proverbial "we'll call you..." If you follow the threads on cleaning the sensors in "rec.photo.digital", you will see that this is everyone's concern and Canon isn't winning great respect on that matter. Doing something would give you extra leverage on publicity: "Canon now makes it easier to get you sensor cleaned" or something like this. I'll bet you would sell even more DSLR's Best regards, Marcel PS This doesn't take care of my problems. We could say, as we used to with Allstate: "You're in good hands with Canon" ;-( _________________________________ |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
Marcel writes ...
I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Whatever they are using it's not all that great and you can quickly learn how to do a better job yourself ... my wife just sent in a 1 D Mark II for some repair work (Irvine facility) and they also said they "cleaned the sensor" on the return form but the sensor has five small dust specs on it. I can do better than that with a brush for dry loose particles or Pec Pads with Eclipse for anything. It's not feasible to send in the camera for this so my advice is to just learn how to do it yourself. First time or two you're pretty nervous but after a while it becomes routine. Bill |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
On 12/1/05 6:31 AM, in article , "Celcius"
wrote: Hi everyone! As you know, cleaning sensors has been a hot topic in this NG. I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Below, starting from my initial e-mail is the correspondence we exchanged. Although I have changed the order for clarity, I haven't altered anything (I still have the "originals"). Perhaps if many of us were to write to Canon to express their concern, Canon might consider something. In the meantime, as stated, I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Best regards to all! Marcel Snip Glad to see you are pursuing this; maybe if more of us did this we would get some better answers from the manufacturers. Let us know if you ever do get a satisfactory response. Related to this issue, this place - http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/ - claims to know what the manufacturers repair sites actually do. Excerpting some of their write-up, this is what they say: € Canon - Blower and a Kimwipe, held by tweezers. They do not like to use fluid but when necessary they use either 90% isopropyl alcohol or a 50/50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and Windex. € Fuji - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse € Kodak - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse € Leica - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse € Nikon - A commercial grade lens tissue wrapped around a chopstick style piece of wood with medical grade methanol. Several forums have posts where readers have been to Nikon Service outside the USA and reported seeing the technicians using SensorsSwabs and Eclipse. € Olympus - A Kimwipe held by tweezers and Olympus Proprietary Solution (dries quickly without streaks and is bio-degradeable). € Pentax - A special lint free cloth (provided from Japan) folded into a small square and held with a pair of tweezers as a swab moistened with a freon derivative. € Sigma - Uses a special vacuum cleaner that was provided by Japan. Chuck |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"C Wright" wrote in message . .. On 12/1/05 6:31 AM, in article , "Celcius" wrote: Hi everyone! As you know, cleaning sensors has been a hot topic in this NG. I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Below, starting from my initial e-mail is the correspondence we exchanged. Although I have changed the order for clarity, I haven't altered anything (I still have the "originals"). Perhaps if many of us were to write to Canon to express their concern, Canon might consider something. In the meantime, as stated, I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Best regards to all! Marcel Snip Glad to see you are pursuing this; maybe if more of us did this we would get some better answers from the manufacturers. Let us know if you ever do get a satisfactory response. Related to this issue, this place - http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/ - claims to know what the manufacturers repair sites actually do. Excerpting some of their write-up, this is what they say: ? Canon - Blower and a Kimwipe, held by tweezers. They do not like to use fluid but when necessary they use either 90% isopropyl alcohol or a 50/50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and Windex. ? Fuji - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Kodak - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Leica - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Nikon - A commercial grade lens tissue wrapped around a chopstick style piece of wood with medical grade methanol. Several forums have posts where readers have been to Nikon Service outside the USA and reported seeing the technicians using SensorsSwabs and Eclipse. ? Olympus - A Kimwipe held by tweezers and Olympus Proprietary Solution (dries quickly without streaks and is bio-degradeable). ? Pentax - A special lint free cloth (provided from Japan) folded into a small square and held with a pair of tweezers as a swab moistened with a freon derivative. ? Sigma - Uses a special vacuum cleaner that was provided by Japan. Chuck Thanks Chuck! I've made a copy of this. I'll try indeed to pursue this thing. Next step is to write to Canon USA Cheers, Marcel |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message ups.com... Marcel writes ... I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Whatever they are using it's not all that great and you can quickly learn how to do a better job yourself ... my wife just sent in a 1 D Mark II for some repair work (Irvine facility) and they also said they "cleaned the sensor" on the return form but the sensor has five small dust specs on it. I can do better than that with a brush for dry loose particles or Pec Pads with Eclipse for anything. It's not feasible to send in the camera for this so my advice is to just learn how to do it yourself. First time or two you're pretty nervous but after a while it becomes routine. Bill Bill, Thank you for the encouragement. If I only knew how it's made and what pressure it can take... There those swabs that seem to be about the width of the sensor and you swipe once... Ideally, there should be pre-wet swabs that come in a cellophane. You would open it, use the swab and throw it away. The problem with just the blower is that apparently the sensor when "on" either is charged electrostatically (?) or is heated up. This seems to "seal" the dust in. Regards, Marcel |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"Celcius" wrote in message ... "C Wright" wrote in message . .. On 12/1/05 6:31 AM, in article , "Celcius" wrote: Hi everyone! As you know, cleaning sensors has been a hot topic in this NG. I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Below, starting from my initial e-mail is the correspondence we exchanged. Although I have changed the order for clarity, I haven't altered anything (I still have the "originals"). Perhaps if many of us were to write to Canon to express their concern, Canon might consider something. In the meantime, as stated, I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Best regards to all! Marcel Snip Glad to see you are pursuing this; maybe if more of us did this we would get some better answers from the manufacturers. Let us know if you ever do get a satisfactory response. Related to this issue, this place - http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/ - claims to know what the manufacturers repair sites actually do. Excerpting some of their write-up, this is what they say: ? Canon - Blower and a Kimwipe, held by tweezers. They do not like to use fluid but when necessary they use either 90% isopropyl alcohol or a 50/50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and Windex. ? Fuji - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Kodak - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Leica - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Nikon - A commercial grade lens tissue wrapped around a chopstick style piece of wood with medical grade methanol. Several forums have posts where readers have been to Nikon Service outside the USA and reported seeing the technicians using SensorsSwabs and Eclipse. ? Olympus - A Kimwipe held by tweezers and Olympus Proprietary Solution (dries quickly without streaks and is bio-degradeable). ? Pentax - A special lint free cloth (provided from Japan) folded into a small square and held with a pair of tweezers as a swab moistened with a freon derivative. ? Sigma - Uses a special vacuum cleaner that was provided by Japan. Chuck Thanks Chuck! I've made a copy of this. I'll try indeed to pursue this thing. Next step is to write to Canon USA Cheers, Marcel This is also a very informative site: http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/image/15473243 Chris |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"c" wrote in message ... "Celcius" wrote in message ... "C Wright" wrote in message . .. On 12/1/05 6:31 AM, in article , "Celcius" wrote: Hi everyone! As you know, cleaning sensors has been a hot topic in this NG. I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Below, starting from my initial e-mail is the correspondence we exchanged. Although I have changed the order for clarity, I haven't altered anything (I still have the "originals"). Perhaps if many of us were to write to Canon to express their concern, Canon might consider something. In the meantime, as stated, I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Best regards to all! Marcel Snip Glad to see you are pursuing this; maybe if more of us did this we would get some better answers from the manufacturers. Let us know if you ever do get a satisfactory response. Related to this issue, this place - http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/ - claims to know what the manufacturers repair sites actually do. Excerpting some of their write-up, this is what they say: ? Canon - Blower and a Kimwipe, held by tweezers. They do not like to use fluid but when necessary they use either 90% isopropyl alcohol or a 50/50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and Windex. ? Fuji - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Kodak - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Leica - Photographic Solutions SensorSwabs and Eclipse ? Nikon - A commercial grade lens tissue wrapped around a chopstick style piece of wood with medical grade methanol. Several forums have posts where readers have been to Nikon Service outside the USA and reported seeing the technicians using SensorsSwabs and Eclipse. ? Olympus - A Kimwipe held by tweezers and Olympus Proprietary Solution (dries quickly without streaks and is bio-degradeable). ? Pentax - A special lint free cloth (provided from Japan) folded into a small square and held with a pair of tweezers as a swab moistened with a freon derivative. ? Sigma - Uses a special vacuum cleaner that was provided by Japan. Chuck Thanks Chuck! I've made a copy of this. I'll try indeed to pursue this thing. Next step is to write to Canon USA Cheers, Marcel This is also a very informative site: http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/image/15473243 Chris Thanks Chris! I conducted a search on Internet and got the sites below. I haven't had time to study all of those carefully. Even then, I don't know who to believe ;-) The problem is that most of those sell their products, and of course they're great! Regards, Marcel http://www.bythom.com/cleaning.htm http://www.livingroom.org.au/photolo...ge_sensors.php http://www.pbase.com/tim32225/sensor_cleaning http://cleaningdigitalcameras.com/ http://www.ultimateslr.com/clean-image-sensor.php http://www.impulseadventure.com/phot...ust-clean.html http://www.intemos.com/home.asp http://www.photosafari.com/Articles/...gTheSensor.asp http://www.photosol.com/ http://www.pictureline.com/newslette...dslrclean.html http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/con...296&print=true http://www.visibledust.com/ http://www.luminous-landscape.com/es...cleaning.shtml http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-...?msg_id=00CvVS http://www.dphoto.us/news/node/22 http://www.earthboundlight.com/photo...that-dust.html http://www.pictureline.com/newsletter/article.php?id=96 http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_...ur_Sensor.html http://www.hoothollow.com/Visibledust.html |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"Celcius" wrote in message ... Hi everyone! I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Much of your problem here is likely to be airborne spores that have settled on your sensor. You will get this if you use the camera in moist air even if you do not ever remove the lens. I use my cameras outside often in rain etc and the condensation inside the camera leaves these fine marks. You must clean these off yourself - blowing is useless - but cleaning is easy and a simple. Canon dropped a right bollock when they first said that cleaning sensors was a pro job - it isn't and it needs doing daily in some circumstances. |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"RustY©" wrote in message ... "Celcius" wrote in message ... Hi everyone! I finally got a lot of trash that I can't get rid of on my Canon's Rebel XT CMOS sensor and decided to write to Canon Canada. Much of your problem here is likely to be airborne spores that have settled on your sensor. You will get this if you use the camera in moist air even if you do not ever remove the lens. I use my cameras outside often in rain etc and the condensation inside the camera leaves these fine marks. You must clean these off yourself - blowing is useless - but cleaning is easy and a simple. Canon dropped a right bollock when they first said that cleaning sensors was a pro job - it isn't and it needs doing daily in some circumstances. Thanks Rust. So far, I've seen that there are two ways of doing it. 1- Copper Hill method (Swabs + Eclipse) 2- The "Visible Dust" method (http://www.visibledust.com/) Both also seem to have a special dry brush to get at the dust. I'm still not to the point of getting what I need and doing the thing myself. Cheers, Marcel |
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More about cleaning sensors and Canon Canada (long)
"Celcius" wrote in message ... "Bill Hilton" wrote in message ups.com... Marcel writes ... I have a lot of addresses for products, but I wish I knew WHAT CANON IS USING to clean their sensors safely. Whatever they are using it's not all that great and you can quickly learn how to do a better job yourself ... my wife just sent in a 1 D Mark II for some repair work (Irvine facility) and they also said they "cleaned the sensor" on the return form but the sensor has five small dust specs on it. I can do better than that with a brush for dry loose particles or Pec Pads with Eclipse for anything. It's not feasible to send in the camera for this so my advice is to just learn how to do it yourself. First time or two you're pretty nervous but after a while it becomes routine. Bill Bill, Thank you for the encouragement. If I only knew how it's made and what pressure it can take... There those swabs that seem to be about the width of the sensor and you swipe once... Ideally, there should be pre-wet swabs that come in a cellophane. You would open it, use the swab and throw it away. The problem with just the blower is that apparently the sensor when "on" either is charged electrostatically (?) or is heated up. This seems to "seal" the dust in. Not so. And you usually do not need wet wipes. A good brush, a quick swipe or two and you're done. You do NOT need to know how much pressure the sensor will take. First, you're cleaning a filter, not the sensor. Second, if you have to scrub, there's something seriously wrong with the filter/sensor/camera and it has to go to the factory. Get a nylon brush. Cosmetics counter brushes work fine. Wash and rinse very well, using distilled water. Dry well. Blow air through the *brush* and then use the brush to swipe off the filter. Cost is whatever the can of air is, and the brush, probably a total of under 10 bucks, and enough to last for a year or more. If things get really out of hand, I use (so far, once, and it wasn't really needed) Sensor Swabs and Eclipse liquid, but the package is way, way overpriced...a common event in sensor cleaning. |
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