Originally posted by gut1kor even I have a crescent shaped dust particle near the centre of the frame. It will only appear in photos at > f8 aperture against a bright background (even in bokeh). I am comfortable removing these spots in lightroom in few photos than touching the sensor with swab or whatever.
Hi
Firstly please realise the sensor, while it is a delicate piece of engineering, is more robust than you would think. The fear of doing damage to it only makes your hands shaky, so take a deep breath, relax and get to work in the knowledge that it actually takes some doing and some extraordinary stupidity to ruin the little blighter.
I am not a great fan of the famous blower as, in my experience, the blower will not always shift the crap and if it does the dirt will just be blown in to a new location inside the chamber. Turbulence created by the mirror slap and pump action from expending tele lens tubes will than make it re-appear back on to the sensor one day.
I have been using the PENTAX O-ICK1 "orange lolly" (as I like to call it) for many years with nothing but total success. And I use it when ever I discover dirt on the sensor. I check regularly and the reason simply is this; You never know what the particle that is stuck on your sensor actually consist of. It could be anything, from a piece of Salami, (just kidding) a sweaty piece of skin flake a particle of a ferrous nature (which could rust with humidity) to just an ordinary bit of dust. The point is, since you do not know what it is, it is better to remove it quickly before it has a chance to "weld" itself to the sensor surface over time in which case a wet cleaning method will be the only way to get rid of it. For the last 4 years I never had to do this. So please, in my opinion, don't ignore or live with it and let the dust linger. I go so far to say that every wet clean is the result of an unknown speck of crap that got stuck to the sensor because it was given time and therefore a chance to "ferment" through humidity and condensation.
When using the "orange lolly" follow this way:
Make sure the surface of the lolly which will make contact with the sensor is clean by dabbing the supplied paper. To make sure you don't dab the same spot of paper again next time, overlay a grid of little squares roughly the size of the lolly head by scoring the paper lightly with a Stanly knife. (You can't use a pen for this) and then tick off the used one with anything sharp. This way you always know which part of the paper was used and you don't wast paper either.
When applying the lolly press down firmly with A LOT OF GENTLE FEELING (I think you know what I mean). You will feel a very slight vibration and a little hum coming through the shaft of the stick. This is normal and I think it comes from the SR system.
Now when it comes to lift the lolly off, slowly tilt the shaft to one side and then lift off, don't lift the thing off by moving it up straight as it will make it harder to disconnect. Do not drag the lolly head across the sensor surface either. Now dab the next unused paper square and repeat the process until you feel happy all trouble spots of the sensor are covered. Check for dust and if necessary repeat the process. (Sometimes you need to go over several times).
That's it you are done. There is really nothing to it. (Oh, one more thing, shine a bright desk lamp into the opening so you can see what you are doing.) After you have done this several times you will wonder why you were so scared of it before.
Originally posted by gut1kor .If you still wanted to clean get some professional cleaning done on it.
Sorry, utter nonsense. They only use the same tools and method available to you. It amuses me to no end every time I read these scaremongering comments by people who profit enormously by selling you cheap cleaning implements at 2000% inflated prices.
They have you believe the sensor is as fragile as a soap bubble, well it is not.
Just use your common sense when you approach this cleaning task, respect the fine piece of engineering the sensor is, follow the instructions and you will be fine. I started to clean my cameras sensors starting with the K-10D right through to the K-5, must have done this a 100 times and more and never, repeat never, hat anything go wrong!
If you use the right tools it is actually not easy to kill the sensor.
There is only one caveat: If you have two left hands, full of thumbs and have the shakes, then perhaps it would be better to let someone else do the job.
Greetings