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Visible Dust's Sensor Brush and Chamber Clean
March 1, 2005

In the past, I've been asked what I use to clean my Nikon D100 digital SLR and most seem surprised at the manner in which I clean it and the infrequency of my cleaning cycles. I have until now, just used a hand bulb style air blower to blow air into the CCD chamber and clear out dust. Until this past weekend, I could not recall when I last did such a cleaning.

Dust is an issue for many digital photographers, but for me, dust only pops up every now and then and when it does, I've taken care of it quickly and easily using the Photoshop Clone or Healing Brush tool. Dust generally only shows in subject matter where there is a clean and continuous tone area, such as light colored walls and blue skies.

I can well imagine though that for photographers more prolific than I am and for those that use their cameras in harsher conditions than I do that dust is an issue and one that even with Photoshop, becomes a tedious task. For these photographers, a hand bulb blower will not do and various cleaning methods have arisen to remedy the problem.

Most of the accepted methods require some form of wet cleaning in the form of a cleaning solution, most likely isopropyl alcohol, and sterile cleaning swabs. Some photographers eschew the relatively expensive Sensor Swab style kits and resort to making or modifying their own tools, such as chopsticks or Wendy's plastic knives, per Nikon expert, Thom Hogan's method. You can obtain more information on how the camera brands clean cameras sent in for servicing, as well purchase different types of cleaning supplies at www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/. Disclosure - cleaningdigitalcameras.com is an advertiser at my other website, NikonLinks.

Me, I don't like the idea of using some home made implement and I also don't like the idea of wet cleaning for the delicate filter in front of the CCD - one does not actually clean the CCD, but rather the filter in front of it. And as dust was not such a big issue for me, I was doing okay with the blower bulb and Photoshop's Healing Bruss.

Curiousity got the better of me though and thanks to some money burning a hole in my PayPal account, I decided to buy some real cleaning tools last week. The choice was for a Canadian company called Visible Dust.

Visible Dust is based in the neighboring Canadian province of Alberta (Edmonton) and was started by a fellow with a day job in the bio tech industry. Experience with cleaning microscope slides led to this avid photographer to create the Sensor Brush to clean his own digital SLRs. You can read more at Rob Galbraith's web site, which is where I first came across the Sensor Brush.

The Sensor Brush is a rather unique way to clean the CCD. It's a dry method so no fluids or streaks to worry about and the brush itself merely requires some compressed air to "charge" it and allow it to pull dust off of the sensor. Very interesting, or fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say.

The Sensor Brush is not cheap at just under CAN $108 for the Econo Kit, which has a Sensor Brush and a fan brush that can be charged with a blower bulb instead of compressed air. Both brushes are sized to clean a 1.5x or 1.6x sized CCD in one sweep. Larger and smaller sizes are also available at varying prices.

Visible Dust also sells a wet cleaning kit, but it seems the owner of the company suggests the wet kit only for the most difficult cleaning requirements. There is a also a Chamber Cleaning kit, one meant for cleaning the mirror box, not the CCD or CMOS sensor itself.

I bought the 1.6x Econo Kit and the Chamber Cleaning kit. The package arrived in two-days by Priority Canada Post, which was a surprise since I just requested regular mail that could have taken up to two-weeks for delivery. No matter, onwards with trying out the kits.

I cleaned the chamber of my D100 first and egads, two and a half years of use have allowed a bit of gunk to settle in, as the shot of the dirty swab below shows. It wasn't so much the innards of the chamber that was that dirty, as it was the lens mount that had a bit of crud on it. The rationale behind the Chamber Cleaning kit is that everytime you mount and dis-mount a lens from the camera, tiny little metal bits and shavings can come off and eventually find their way onto the CCD. Best to keep the chamber fairly clean to help minimize dust from getting inside.

Chamber cleaning swab post cleaning

Makes you wonder though, if one has to worry about high precision lenses and camera mounts from creating little shavings and metallic bits, how much crud do we ingest from all the canned foods we have to open up with a can opener and then eat after cooking? Maybe best to let sleeping dogs lie because what we don't know can't hurt us, right :-)

The Chamber Cleaning swabs are just thin foam swabs and the CAN $30 kit only comes with 10 of these swabs. I think a well stocked drug store will likely offer something similar. Interestingly, the sample shot at the website shows the kit in a nice little plastic container with obviously more than 10 swabs, whereas my kit came in one of those non-static computer parts type bags. Hmm...?

So does the Sensor Brush work. You bet it does. First I took a shot of a white board with my 70-200 lens zoomed into 200mm to isolate a small area of white. Letting the meter determine the exposure got me a nearly perfect 18% grey image - if you have to wonder why that is, better read my metering chapter.

I did an Auto Levels in Photoshop to really reveal the crud and boy was there ever a bunch of crud, but with the way the shot was taken, all of the crud was actually stuff on the white board, thus no sample shot is posted because it isn't relevant. But before realizing this error, I continued on my merry way and took the camera off the lens and did a blower bulb cleaning for comparison sakes. Took another couple of shots then I took the camera off the lens again and did the Sensor Brush cleaning. These are the two sample shots seen below.

I cleaned both times using the D100's AC adapter to keep the mirror safely locked up and I assume to keep the CCD from being charged up as it would be in picture taking mode, and thus more attractive of dust. The Sensor Brush shot definitely shows an improvement in cleaning away dust spots that the blower bulb could not. Incidentally, if I didn't do an Auto Levels adjustment, you wouldn't see any dust unless I posted 100% crops of the dust spots. The Auto Levels adjustment allows you to make out dust in the smaller full frame samples below.

A photo of a white board after a Photoshop Auto Levels adjustment reveals some hard to remove dust spots - the sensor had just been blown with a hand bulb type air blaster. The scratch like markings you see are actually on the white board and only showed up after the Auto Levels adjustment.

Same white board, same settings, same everything except that the CCD has been cleaned with the Sensor Brush

It's not cheap, but then no digital CCD/CMOS cleaning kit is, so I don't feel quite as bad spending a $100 on what appears to be a non-descript paint brush. The fact that it works very well also mitigates the cost. Also, consider that Nikon Canada charges $80 plus tax to do a non-warranty cleaning of cameras sent in, so with one service call cost, you can clean your camera yourself any number of times.

March 30, 2005 - I came across a very interesting article about the possible origins of the Sensor Brush. If true, then I feel like a fool for spending $100 on a nickel and dime brush. Wonder what the Visible Dust people, the makers (?) of the Sensor Brush, would have to say about this article ;-)

May 8, 2005 - I can now direct readers to another source for a static cleaning brush offered by Nicholas R. of the Copper Hill cleaning method fame. The Copper Hill method is the classic use of a stiff tool with a pec pad wrapped around it. The pec pad is wetted with some cleaning solution and one swabs the camera's sensor. The wet method is the most effective way to get hard to remove gunk off of you sensor.

Nicholas R. now offers the Sensor Sweep brush, which sure as hell looks like a Sensor Brush, but with a black brush instead of white and sells for a much more reasonable US $22, including S&H. You can find out more about Nicholas R. and his products at his website.

July 18, 2005 - My look at how well Nicholas R's Sensor Sweep works.

August 1, 2005 - A reader sent an email about his experience with Visible Dust's wet cleaning products, you can read the details and the warning of what can happen at his web blog.

On the topic of cleaning, below is a shot of my usual lens cleaning kit. The ROR, or Residual Oil Remover was just bought recently as a last ditch attempt to try and clean a hazy Hoya multi-coated filter (HMC series). Of course, I didn't recall coming across not using ROR on multi-coated filters until after the fact :-)

Using good old Kodak lens cleaning solution and Kodak lens cleaning paper has been my mainstay for cleaning really hard to get rid of gunk off of optical surfaces. Not so much for my lenses, because I keep them pristine and always use a protective filter along with a micro-fiber cloth for cleaning when needed, but for getting rid of sticky finger prints off of CDs and DVDs that my kids will have handled. The discs get so dirty that the players stall or skip and that's when I have to clean them. The Kodak products have always come through.

Below is why I don't use multi-coated filters on my lenses. Once stained or blemished, good luck cleaning the filter. Below is after an ROR session. The Kodak lens cleaning solution and then a micro-fiber buffing session was able to get rid of most of this haze, but there still remained a residual trace of haze. Back to the junk drawer it goes.

Readers Suggestions on Cleaning Filters

March 31, 2005

Edwin,
First I would like to state that I read your site often and appreciate the efforts you make in presenting material to folks like myself. Second I read your article on the sensor brush and when I read the part on lens filter cleaning I recalled the similar trouble I've experienced while traveling in China, etc. without cleaning supplies.

I have found that simple liquid hand/dish soap, or a bar soap spread into one's fingers, works extremely well. Dampen the filter with clean running water and then gently wash the filter surface with your sopay fingertips, rinse more, swirl a bit more, etc. Then rinse and rub lightly clean until no residue or film shows on the filter face.

I have used this technique with optical acrylic and coated and uncoated glass filters. I was having a lot of difficulty with Nikons newer thin ring polarizers and my Galen Rowell acrylics. This technique does eliminate all of the hazing you mentioned and does not cause any damage to the element done carefully with soft soaps.

When working with double lens arrangements like polarizers it's best not to soak the filter too much as some vapor may penetrate the ring seals and you'll have to wait for the condensate to dry. I usually shake residual water off and then dab dry with a CLEAN soft cotton cloth like a tee-shirt with no fabric softener from the wash. You can use a fresh microfiber to "polish" the filter to eliminate any micro drops and then leave sit until completely dry.

This works very well in a hotel room. etc. but not in the field for obvious reasons. Hope this is useful to you. Keep up the good work on an excellent website.

Sincerely,
Richard Schulde
Misawa, Japan

July 7, 2005

The best mc filter cleaner I have come across is — hypoallergenic, alcohol-free baby wipes. They are extremely gentle cleansers designed to get rid of organic matter and they clean my filters without, as far as I can tell, damaging the coating. They work fine for removing fingerprints and smudges from mc filters. After applying a small amount, I get the dampness off with a soft cotton cloth (like a tee shirt) and then finish the job with a microfiber cloth. These wipes are easy to find, inexpensive (I think I pay around $3 for a hundred of the house brand at Target) and work fast enough to be useful in the field.

Thanks for the interesting site.

Best wishes,
Peter Rhalter
Los Angeles, California

January 19, 2006

For most dust, the hand bulb is an effective way to remove it from the sensor.

The way the professional camera service people clean both the sensor and lenses is the same. Alcohol and lens cleaning tissue. You can get 70% alcohol at almost any supermarket or pharmacy. Lens cleaning tissue should be available at any camera store. Wrap a lens cleaning tissue around a q-tip, chop stick, straw or other stick-like thing. Get just enough alcohol on it to get the tissue wet. Don't dunk it in the alcohol. Start at the center of the lens/sensor and go in circles until you reach the outer edge. That's it.

The dust on your sensor will be most visible at small aperture settings like f22. Imagine the light coming through the aperture, hitting the filter where the dust lands, then hitting the sensor behind it. If the light comes from a large area like f2, the shadow of the dust will be fuzzed out. Small dust will cast almost no shadow at all. If the light comes from a small area like f22, the shadow will be very sharp. Even small dust will cast a clear shadow.

You mention metal filings coming from mounting and unmounting lenses. Don't forget the sliding pieces of the mechanical shutter. BTW, there's also an electronic shutter but the mechanical one protects the sensor from getting burned out from being exposed to light ALL the time.

Khouri Giordano

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