Cleaning my D70 CCD Sensor the Simple Way

Albert wrote me an I spy a tiny fleck of dirt in your eye note on my Flickr site. A recent picture I took of the Comcast Center had a giant blob right in the middle of a clear blue sky. Here it is...the dust is almost in the center and looks like a clear "bump."

Scuze me while I shoot this sky
The dirt is just to the right of the crane at about 45% down from the top. It's a blemish in the blue sky.

So, I had to clean my CCD. And that's no fun. Sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, in fact. I did a recommended test with a white piece of paper, snapped a picture at F22, and looked for the telltale dust.




Things that go bump on the white
Okay, so with this white shot done with a tight aperture, I could see the dirt spots plain as day. (You may have to click on the thumbnails to see what I mean.) Bummer. So, I went to the camera store.

I asked for a sensor cleaning kit. They didn't have one. But the manager of the camera store told me how to fix my problem. It worked like magic. And it didn't cost me a penny. (If you want to know what camera store, send me a note and I'll tell you what store it was and where...I just don't want to get the guy in a pickle if it's not standard operating procedure.)

Here's the proof that what I did worked.


Jeez, I thought cleaning the CCD was something that kids who didn't go to Catholic school had to do
CCD meant the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine when I was a kid. I went to Catholic school in Chicago, and CCD was what Catholic kids who didn't go to Catholic school went to on the weekend. As I find out, CCD can also stand for about a hundred other things. In my case, CCD is for Charge Coupled Device on my Nikon D70. The dirty thing. No more.

The dirt is gone. I shot sky shots. I shot white shots. I shot all kinds of shots. Dirt gone. So, what did I do?

Vacuum.

I setup a long exposure shot with the lens cap on, twisted off the lens once the mirror was actuated, and took the vacuum brush from my Miele vacuum and made a solid connection over the gaping hole. I let the vacuum pull the dust outta there. End of story.

It was so simple. No rubbing of the sensor. No risk of scratching or streaking it. No nothing. Free for nothing. Zero. And I have a clean D70 CCD. Yahoo! Off to make some pix tonight at a dirt racetrack in New Jersey. I might have to repeat the process tomorrow, but for now I'm one happy camper.