help! Is this dust or lubrication/oil on my image sensor?

[alexsommers]

I was hoping I could ask for some of your opinions on this matter.


I have a Canon Rebel XSi and I fear that I might have oil/lubrication on my image sensor. I bought a rocket blower the other day to see if I could blow off the dust and also ran the sensor cleaning function on the camera multiple times but it appears that none of the spots were removed.


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I fear that if it is oil that my sensor will need wet cleaning and I'm not confident in my ability. I live in the Phoenix area and Tempe Camera cleans sensor's for $35 and it's overnight. Should I just have them do it? And if so, anyone in the Phx area have experience with Tempe Camera?


Thanks in advance for everyone's opinions and thoughts.

[IAMB]

Yup, you've got oil spots (at least the ones with a rainbow halo around the dark spot are oil... I see the same thing with microscopes that haven't been cleaned properly by students). Anyway, you should try the sensor cleaning version of the LensPen (here) before taking it in. I've used that particular LensPen exclusively for quite a while and it works quite well for most applications. If that doesn't work, then you'll need a wet cleaning. If that still doesn't work, you could always try cleaning solution for the oil lens on a microscope (any college biology lab would probably just give you some if you asked nicely)... though I'm not sure how well it would work on a camera sensor.

[Oren]

IAMB, how do you know it's oil? I'm sorry but I disagree, it looks like normal dust to me. Anyhow, with the given info - i.e you have no idea how the picture was taken and what kind of PP was done, you can't really tell anything for sure.

[IAMB]

IAMB, how do you know it's oil? I'm sorry but I disagree, it looks like normal dust to me. Anyhow, with the given info - i.e you have no idea how the picture was taken and what kind of PP was done, you can't really tell anything for sure.
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The main reason I call some of the spots (not all of them) oil is the refraction around the borders of the spots. If you look closely, you'll see a rainbow halo around a number of the spots. It takes a fairly extraordinary set of circumstances to see haloes like the ones I'm seeing if it's just dust.





The other reason is experience. As a microbiologist, I've seen oil spots on more optics than I care to think about, and these look exactly like what I'm used to seeing with oil spots and looks nothing like what I see when I have dust on my camera sensors.





I am, however, perfectly open to the possibility of being completely wrong.

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

Sensor dust is a fact of life for us DSLR shooters [], you'd see it if you look for it and you're really asking for it when you shoot a white paper @ f/22 and increase contrast/tone in photoshop. Shoot normal subject at f/8 and wider and I bet you 90% of the dust spots will disappear. You won't see the dust spots in theshadow area, if you see stubborn spots in lighter area like blue sky, just clone them out in PS or use the Dust Delete Data that comes with DPP.


My question for you is...


Do you always shoot a white paper @ f/22 then increase contrast and tone in Photoshop?


Don't worry about sensor dust....and welcome to the forum.

[alexsommers]

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and input. Although it is rather uncommon for me to shoot at f22, I decided to get a lenspen sensorklear to remove as much of those dust particles as I could. For those of you who may be interested in seeing the results, here you go. Still not completely clean but I didn't expect it to be. At least it is better[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.28.80/IMG_5F00_5629ab.jpg[/img]

[piiooo]

No matter what this is, if you get a decent sensor cleaning kit and perform wet cleaning you should be able to get rid of this stuff.

[Oren]

More importantly - if your pictures look fine, you shouldn't do anything... if it's ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Chuck Lee]

Alex,


Welcome to the forum.


I apologize up front for these stupid questions. I do not know your level of expertise.


1) Did you doa "mirror up" function before using the rocket blower?


2) If so, did you hold the camera body with the lens mount facing down as you blew it off?


3) Also, are you seeing alot of dust/hairs/fuzz on the focusing screen through the viewfinder?


I'm asking because if this is dust, you should see a big difference after using the blower. The oil spotting I've seen shown on the 1D MkIII was never this pronounced andI didn't see a service bulletin for the XSi. Only the 1D and 1Ds MkIII.


Looks like dust to me.

[alexsommers]

thanks for the replies so far. Just to give a little more back ground info:


I took this pic at f22 on a white sheet of paper and processed it in photoshop to increase contrast and tone to have the spots show up.


Chuck,


no worries for the questions.


1. I did have the mirror up when I used the blower.


2. I also did hold the camera body facing down in hopes that the dust would fall out of the camera once blown off


3. I'm not really noticing anything through the viewfinder but I'm at work now so I can't check my camera.


when I used the blower, I only had the tip barely into the camera body as I didn't want to risk touching anything inadvertently when blowing. Maybe I should blow closer to the sensor then?