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Dirty lens

Rawfa

Active member
Only realized that my NEx5's lens was dirty when I got home. Taken at noon the visibility on the LCD was practicably none.





 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
That's a cool faded postcard look!

I suspect it's the imager cover glass that needs cleaning, more than the lens.

There are some white spots too... hot pixels?
 

ZoranC

New member
1. What aperture you were shooting with?

2. This looks rather bad. I have had dust on my sensor but it was never this bad.

3. Spots might be moving because dust cleaning system is trying to do it's job.

4. You live in almost tropical climate. Inspect for fungus.
 

Rawfa

Active member
You guys are right. I used 2 different lenses. I was shooting with extremely high shutter speeds. After I realized that I blew some air into the sensor very lightly and turned the camera on and off a couple of time so the camera could clean the sensor and the spots were gone. I have yet to do another test with high shutter speeds.

p.s - the white spots were added in post :) since the photos were messes up I thought I'd give it a treatment accordingly
 

Rand47

Active member
Yup... that is dirt on the sensor. The standard way to check on how much signficant "dirt" is on your sensor is to stop the camera all the way down (f/22+) and shoot an image of a clear blue sky, white wall, etc., and then carefully examine that image. This makes any particles appear (smaller) very well defined. That's why they've shown up in these images... you were stopped down a bunch. They may not be visible at wide open. You should experiment with a clear blue sky before you clean it to get an idea of when this kind of dirt starts to show up radically!

Some smaller particles, don't show up at all at wider apertures - but if you stop down near max they magically appear.

Sensor cleaning is a fact of life for most of us. The only "almost totally effective" dust buster is Olympus' version.

Lots of good info on YouTube about sensor cleaning and the various products available.


Three basic approaches to be used in this order:
Air blower

If that doesn't do it, then:

Some kind of brush like the Arctic Butterfly (be careful in its use - watch videos!)

If that doesn't do it and something is actually "stuck" to the sensor then:

Wet cleaning w/ fluid and sensor swabs.

None of it magic, all of it needs to be done carefully, and methodicallly - but is easily within the ability of almost anyone.
 
K

kjyuan

Guest
i actually think the images look really nice. I like the faded look. looks like sensor dust though
 

sonomichele

New member
Dust or dirt? Damn I'm disappointed. I thought it was a UFO invasion. You could probably sell those pictures to the National Enquirer or something equivalent.

Michael
 

Rawfa

Active member
Dust or dirt? Damn I'm disappointed. I thought it was a UFO invasion. You could probably sell those pictures to the National Enquirer or something equivalent.

Michael
I've always knew Rio would be the first place to be invaded....those darn aliens really have a taste for our woman.
 
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