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Home >> Photography >> Digital Copperhill
Sensor Sweep Cleaning Brush
The Sensor Brush is a dry-clean tool, meaning no wet solutions need to be used that can result in streaks on the sensor (actually, it’s the protective filter, or glass above the sensor that you’re actually cleaning in most D-SLRs). It works by charging the nylon filaments of the brush by blowing it with compressed air, the readily available kind that you buy for cleaning computer parts. The charged nylon filaments will then attract most if not all of the dust on the sensor and it does a good enough job that you may never have to worry about doing a wet cleaning again.
An article about how the Sensor Brush works and what its true origins might be was posted on the Internet last year. One would surmise that eventually, someone else would be able to market the same kind of product for a much more competitive price. And of course it happened. Nicholas
R. of
Nicholas R. was kind enough to send me a review sample of the Sensor Sweep, so here we go (I must apologize to Nicholas for the length of time it took me to get this review going, as I was in the midst of a photographic slump and had not been very active of late). About
Sensor Sweep This is the primary difference between the two dry-cleaning brushes, the Sensor Brush uses air to charge, while the Sensor Sweep uses friction to build up the charge, somewhat similar in concept to shuffling your feet on carpet as a kid and then touching your best friend to shock him. If you lose the velium paper, Nicholas suggests glossy magazine paper as a good alternative. Using
the Sensor Sweep Distilled water? Where the heck does one get distilled water? A trip to my local Safeway supermarket got me a 4 liter jug of distilled water for CAN $2, but my wife advised me that other stores sell the same amount for just over $1. Cleaning the brush requires a mild soap like baby shampoo, but only a tiny amount, like drop or two. As bad luck would have it, we ran out of baby shampoo in our house, so I moistened the brush in a bowl of the distilled water and then brushed both sides with some Dove bar soap. I stirred the bowl of water with the brush being careful not to get the entire brush wet. If you do dip the whole brush in and get the metal part that holds the brush filaments to the plastic handle then you have to wait 24-hours for drying before being able to use the brush. With only the brush tips wet, your wait is only an hour.
I swiped fairly quickly back and forth across the plastic several dozen times and then following Nicholas R’s instructions, I swiped the brush like it was a windshield wiper for both sides of the brush another dozen times each. These two motions will give the brush the charge it needs to attract dust. Before cleaning the camera, I took a reference shot of white foam-core board with the 70-200 lens filling the frame to see how dirty my D100’s sensor was. The 70-200 was mounted on a tripod and remained in place for the two reference shots for consistency.
The results were somewhat inconclusive because it seemed that my camera was not very dirty to begin with, so there wasn’t much to work with. Next I did the unthinkable and purposely made my sensor dirty by shaking a dust cloth and then using my mirror locked-up D100 as a dust catcher. I charged up the Sensor Sweep and swiped again and this time the results were clearly conclusive. I decided not to use the foam-core board again, as it has too much micro grunge of its own to be a good test subject and instead, used the clear blue sky of some summer weather that has finally appeared in Vancouver.
The Sensor Sweep is about half the width of APS-C digital sensors, so you need to do at least two sweeps to clean the sensor. Just make sure you weren't lazy like me and properly blow the brush clean and then charge it up again before sweeping. Conclusion For
the same money, you can buy several Sensor Sweeps and have one
in each of your main camera bags, as well as one kept at home
base. And if you lose one, well, you won’t need to sing the old
The Sensor Sweep is a no-brainer recommendation of a real world product at a real world cost. 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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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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Earlier
this year, I purchased the 
The
Sensor Brush works as advertised, but still, it costs $108 (plus
S&H), which is no small change for something that comes nowhere
near looking like it's worth a C-note. It’s also interesting to
see a FAQ at the 
The
Sensor Sweep has black brush filaments with a translucent plastic
handle, and It comes packaged in a sealed plastic bag. The brush
itself has an additional protective plastic tube placed over it
and along with the package is a nicely sized plastic tube for
storage. Within the instruction sheet are two strips of velium
paper that you use to charge the brush filaments before cleaning
the camera.
Before
you can use the Sensor Sweep for cleaning the camera, you need
to clean the brush itself. The instruction sheet states that you
must use distilled water for the cleaning. 
I
used some Kodak lens tissue to dry the brush and left it alone
for nearly two-hours to allow for plenty of time to dry. Once
dry, I used a blower bulb to blow the brush and then proceeded
to swipe the brush on the velium paper.
Then
I plugged in my AC adapter into the D100 to safely lockup the
mirror of the D100 to access the sensor for cleaning and then
gave the CCD a couple of swipes. I took a second shot of the white
foam board to see how the Sensor Sweep did in cleaning the Sensor.
