[navcom]

I was rather surprised to learn that "no tools" actually means "vacuum cleaner".

LOL!

....so what should I use to clean my carpets?

[Mike Cash]

LOL!

....so what should I use to clean my carpets?

Not your vacuum cleaner, that's for sure. You'll be lugging that thing along with you when you take pictures, so it is best just to leave it bungee-corded to your camera bag.

[alex1962]

For sensor cleaning I use very well "Solutions Eclipse Cleaner for Sensors & Lenses" with a special paper.

[zavarykin]

DANGER!!!
Today did that cleaning on my 5d mark ii. and now will be 3 weeks without camera. It is in service now, as shutter curtain was damaged !!! Be aware of that!

[The Jannie]

There is no such thing as lens paper. There's just paper. Paper is made from wood. Would you clean your sensor with a stick?

The derisory remarks about cleaning lenses with a shirt sleeve show a lack of thought. Shirts, tees in particular, are made of cotton. Cotton is soooffttt and is my lens cleaner of choice; for convenience I often wear it!

[RioRico]

Sure, stick a dirty household vacuum hose into your camera's guts. Hay, it's only money...

[minahasa]

DANGER!!!
Today did that cleaning on my 5d mark ii. and now will be 3 weeks without camera. It is in service now, as shutter curtain was damaged !!! Be aware of that!

Should have gone the Canon Way.. perhaps this method is for Nikon only

There is no such thing as lens paper. There's just paper. Paper is made from wood. Would you clean your sensor with a stick?

The derisory remarks about cleaning lenses with a shirt sleeve show a lack of thought. Shirts, tees in particular, are made of cotton. Cotton is soooffttt and is my lens cleaner of choice; for convenience I often wear it!

Ha! Nicely put

Sure, stick a dirty household vacuum hose into your camera's guts. Hay, it's only money...

RioRico, it's getting harder and harder to find somebody with a great sense of humor these days.. Honored to have met you! If by any chance you are stranded on a beautiful island called Celebes, let's have tea and chat.. and I'll borrow some of your lens..

[kh1234567890]

I fail to see how using a vacuum hose placed at right angles with the lens mount would be any different from using a blower. The air flow should create enough turbulence in the cavity to dislodge any dust - and suck it out. Surely it is better than shooting bits of sticky room dust from your blower at the sensor ?

[RioRico]

RioRico, it's getting harder and harder to find somebody with a great sense of humor these days.. Honored to have met you! If by any chance you are stranded on a beautiful island called Celebes, let's have tea and chat.. and I'll borrow some of your lens..

Sure, I'll drive right over. Cheers!

ObTopic: Pentax doesn't recommend sticking vacuum hoses into their cameras, so I think I'll skip that procedure.

[conradj]

Well, contrary to all the naysaying the vacuum hose thing doesn't do anything bad to your camera, but you do have to be very, very, extraordinarily careful with the hose. And i don't recommend that anyone should try it even if they're as mentally defective as i am.

i had to resort to it once to clean out the mirror box in my K-7, after i bought an old SMC-F 35-135 that had hidden in it a huge cloud of dust, that spewed into the camera once i mounted the thing.

Nothing else would work. The squeeze bulb blowers just stirred the dust around, there was so much of it. So i made a fitting that kept the hose from sucking itself down too deep inside the mount, glued some old leather steering wheel wrap onto the part of the hose fitting that might conceivably touch any part of the mirror box, changed the dust bag in the electrolux for a new one, and stepped on the switch. After a minute or 2 i applied the hose to the rear end of the offending 35-135, using a square of old rubber placemat with the right sized hole cut into it, to protect the lens, and switched on the vacuum again for a while.

And hey, i'm still alive, and so is my K-7, 25000 or so actuations later. Even the lens is fine now for dust.

Altho, i never did get all the dust out of the surface of the pentaprism.

Edit: i did lower the hose down to the lens mount slowly, once i switched on the vacuum cleaner, so as let the suction air flow increase gradually. And also i never tried to clean the sensor this way. Did dry cleaning, then wet cleaning and then dry cleaning again. Several iterations over a couple weeks. There was a lot of dust.

[richard balonglong]

Hmmm... When it comes to sensor cleaning, I just use my rocket blower. But if there are specs that the blower can't remove, I just use a sensor pen. That's it. Clean and safe. 8D

[Francis]

I think I just scratched my K5 sensor. I used the Delkin sensor vac thing, and that didn't take the dust out... then I tried the swab thing and that appeared to take out the dust but when taking an F22 shot to test, I noticed that there was a speck in the view finder... I don't think that was on the sensor, so I used the rocket blower. That obviously reloaded dust on the sensor so I did the swab again. When using that magnifying thing, I noticed a smudge on the sensor (or sensor cover)... the speck is still visible on the viewfinder. I'm so frustrated. I may just send it in for a general clean/check/repair as I have no immediate needs for the camera. I just cannot imagine how one can change lenses so often without having to clean

[photocanadian]

The following is my surest way to obtain a clean a sensor.
I prefer it to the Ken Rockwell/Chuck Norris approach as it essentially shifts the blame onto a 3rd party with absolutely no emotional penalties.

1) Get a camera.
2) Pop a few screws (as pictured).
3) Use some windex (as pictured).
4) Blame it on the kids after bribing them with some ice cream.

Never failed me, the resulting replacement camera is much cleaner than what I start with.