This is a work in progress started by a suggestion on the Pix facebook page( ). Please feel free to make suggestions or whatever. Do remember that we cannot accept responsibility for any damage you may cause to your camera.
If you have charged your battery you can look for a suitable venue to do what some people perceive as open heart surgery on your camera.
I use my study because it is relatively dust free and has suitable lighting – an angle poise light that I can bend to shine into the camera. It is also where I have a computer with a large screen and I have it switched on with an image taken with the dust-bunny infested camera on the screen. How do you take a picture to show the dust-bunny infestation? Easy, point your camera towards the blue sky and take a picture on AV (aperture priority) at f22. Those black dots you see on your computer screen are dust bunnies.
So while your battery is charging you might as well clean the outside and inside of your camera. Be gentle on the inside, use blower brush to remove anything visible around the mirror and around the lens mount. On the outside I use a clean (important) tooth brush to get dust out of grooves and screws and wipe down with a cloth. While you are at it, clean the mounts of your lenses and blow out around the rear element; it is rather silly to carry around more dust to add to your sensor later on.
Refer to your manual on how to set the camera for manual sensor cleaning and practice it once just so that you don’t get a fright when you are doing it for real. Yes the camera will make a noise when it flips up the mirror and pulls back the shutter. Have a look at your sensor and get a visible feel for it. Maybe now is the time I should mention that a good anti-dandruff shampoo is recommended and that you should not be smoking or dripping sweat and that sneezing could be a disaster! Now do what your manual tells you what to do when you have finished cleaning. It will make a noise and everything will close again!
Now take a look at your computer screen and note where the dust is. This is where the laws of physics confuse things again. If you have a large-dust bunny on the top right-hand corner of your screen the bit of dust is actually on the bottom left-hand corner of your sensor. I cannot remember what this phenomenon is called but this is true! Google the optical laws if you don’t believe me (I will have to refresh my mind as well). If you cannot get your head around this just turn the camera upside down when you are doing the actual cleaning and ignore what I said about the laws of physics.
I don’t use any magnifiers or microscope (I am a cheapskate) to see the dust bunnies on the sensor when I try to remove them. The sensor is small enough for me to guess accurately enough where it is. I now do the procedure as in the previous paragraph and when the sensor is exposed I give the insides a blast of air just to dislodge anything that might be sitting around – also remember gravity, although the bunnies are light, the will tend to fall downwards. Using the exposed tip of the pen-like sensor cleaning device I gently move it over the area where the dust is. I do it gently and just over the area where the bunny is hiding – I don’t try to chase the bunny away, but rather just want to pick it up. Looking at the computer screen I will check where the other bunnies are and gently repeat the procedure on each one. Once I have picked up all the spots I take everything away from the camera and tell the camera I have finished cleaning. The camera will close up and cover its innards and you will then obviously follow up and put a body-cap or a lens on the camera.
The last paragraph is the roughest to do (and write) but gently did it! Unfortunately you haven’t finished yet. Go take another picture of a blue sky at f22 and see if you got all the bunnies. If you did not get them all repeat the whole procedure. I have had to do it three times but never four. If you have bits that do not come away after a few attempts I am afraid that you would have to have it cleaned by a professional. Bigger bits of dust tend to come away easily but the small ones can be stubborn.
That was not too bad, was it? Gently does it and hopefully your dust-bunnies are all gone!
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