[wtlwdwgn]

Is it just me or does the K-1's sensor need cleaning more than other Pentax DSLRs? I rarely need to clean the sensors on my K-3, K20D, or K10D. Seems like I'm cleaning the K-1's sensor just about every week. Yes, the dust removal is set for both startup and shutdown.

[tryphon4]

I never cleaned my K-1's sensor, it counts 1139 shots and i often change the lens.

[seanix]

I haven't cleaned my K-1 sensor yet, I'm at around 1300 shots, and I change lenses a LOT. I have noticed sensor dust a few times since very early on with the K-1 though. I wasn't sure whether that was because I'm pixel peeping suddenly when I rarely did before, or whether it was the type of shots (ex. more testing and playing around than real world for the first few weeks) or whether the larger sensor attracts more dust. I have the dust removal settings on but I'm not sure how effective that really is.

I pretty much never cleaned my K20D sensor, and never noticed any issues.

[monochrome]

I'm around 700 and I've had visible sensor dust twice already, Never had it at all on K-3 and just a few times on K10D. I was surprised the first time.

[Medex]

I'm around 12000 shots on K-1. No dust at all. I have never cleaned nor K-1, nor K5-II (about 70000 shots)

[Tesla]

Perhaps the sensor attracts dust.. electrostatic charge.

[drougge]

For equivalent pictures you'd be stopping down more on the K-1. Visibility of sensor dust is mostly related to the selected aperture (and thickness of the sensor filter stack, which is likely the same on all these cameras), so it seems reasonable to be more sensitive on the K-1. (Even though the size of the dust is a smaller part of the image, it's often too big anyway.)

I noticed this quite a lot when I used my Q more. I could have dust that was even visible to the naked eye on the sensor and still not see any problem in my images.

That said, I think I've cleaned my sensor once on my K-1, in about 2000 shots, which seems to be about the same as on my K-5.

[biz-engineer]

With K5, I rarely had any dust, perhaps once in a few years, and never had on the K3, I had dust cleaning set to Off. On the K1, same settings, 5000 shots I guess, but I already had a visible dust popping on the top edge of the frame (bottom of the sensor), that surprised me since I did not swap lenses except in a clean environment. Ran the built-in sensor dust cleaning and it went away, no dust since then.

[npc]

I've also noticed some dust and was little surprised since I was very careful when swapping lenses (I rarely get dust even on a7r where the sensor is directly exposed).
Eventually the automatic cleaning feature got rid of it after a while and I did not have to clean it manually

[joergens.mi]

Roundabot 5500 pictures. No problems about Sensor dust. There was on time something on the sensor - but using the cleaning option is was gone easily. But I'm missing the sensor check Menu item, I've often used it before a session to check the sensor with my K5 (never cleaned 60000 shots) K3 (never cleaned 55000 shots) and K20D (never cleaned 88000 shots). The only thing I ever used with all my cameras was an air blower, nothing else needed.

[drougge]

There is probably some difference in what people mean by "cleaning the sensor" here. When I said I had cleaned my K-1 sensor once I meant with air. This is the normal cleaning method in my mind. I may have wet cleaned the K-5, but I don't think so. I have wet cleaned the K20, and I have wet cleaned my stupid Canon 5D2 several times. But anything that requires the shutter to be open is "cleaning the sensor" to me, and if you actually touch something to the sensor that deserves special mention.

But that's just me, other people will (clearly) have commented under different assumptions.

[automorphism]

I think the dust removal feature is pretty much useless. Someone did a good test somewhere of this with various camera brands and most don't work. I've tested the feature on my K-50 and it did nothing. Though, I just left it there because it's invisible in the majority of pictures I take.

Anyway, have you done before and after tests with your cleaning method? Maybe the dust removal by air is not as effective on the K1 and you're just moving it around, and every week you just notice it on certain types of shots?

[joergens.mi]

I think the dust removal feature is pretty much useless. Someone did a good test somewhere of this with various camera brands and most don't work. I've tested the feature on my K-50 and it did nothing. Though, I just left it there because it's invisible in the majority of pictures I take.

Anyway, have you done before and after tests with your cleaning method? Maybe the dust removal by air is not as effective on the K1 and you're just moving it around, and every week you just notice it on certain types of shots?

A typical cleaning process is:

• See someting in a normal picture
• Take a Test-shot against a uniform object - moving the camera heavily (because sensor check is missing in the K-1)
• If there is something "sharp" in the picture it is on the sensor, otherwise it would move in the picture
• Do a sensor cleaning with air Blower
  • remove optics
  • Turn the Bajonet towards the floor
  • select sensor clean
  • Blow from below into the camera with a clean dustfree air blower several times
  • Switch the camera off
• do again the sensor check
• repeat from the top if there is still on the picture. With the K20D there was one case that Ii needed 3 runs to remove all others where on or two.

Therefore I didn't consider this useless.
It's nice to come home knowing there is nothing to clean after a trip, some of my collegs have to clean there sensor nearly after every shooting (But that are not pentaxians).

[automorphism]

A typical cleaning process is:

[...]
Therefore I didn't consider this useless.
It's nice to come home knowing there is nothing to clean after a trip, some of my collegs have to clean there sensor nearly after every shooting (But that are not pentaxians).

I didn't mean what you describe is useless, only the automatic sensor shaking. And perhaps that is an exaggeration, since it can still remove maybe 2% of dusts

[sculptor666]

you can shoot 100,000 pictures and never see dust, or you can notice every 500 pics or so... depends what you're doing. shooting at f10-f18 with a flash for macro subjects, and you'll notice everything... shooting subjects at f1.4-f5 and dust can disappear. YMMV!