Hi all,

I have a bit of an issue. Recently on a trip to New Caledonia I took a few shots. They looked great so I got some prints done. They all turned out well except a few seemed to have dust particles on the sensor which turned out on the image. They're easy enough to remove in Lightroom though.

So, I paid to have my sensor cleaned at one of the best shops we have here in Sydney, Australia (won't mention the name as I believe some of the staff may be members on this site).

Anyhow, the dust was originally in the centre of the image and up a bit (so basically when you take landscape shots it's in the middle of the sky and pretty noticeable). There was no dust around the edges at all. So, I went to this shop and they cleaned the sensor and charged me a pretty penny (which is fine). I took a few test shots and the dust in the centre of the sensor is gone, but now there's a lot on each side of the image at the top and bottom, much more than was ever in the centre of the image). I've taken it back now 3 times to get the dust removed, took a few shots this morning and... bam, still there.

I'm not going to take it back again because every time I do I'm made to feel like I don't know what I'm talking about. They've used a loupe and can't see the dust at all, but it was never this bad until I had my sensor cleaned by them, and when we use the loupe with lights we literally can't see it, but it's definitely there in the image.

Is there something I'm missing? Is there somewhere else the dust could be that would show up on the image? I've got a fairly new 24-70 2.8 and notice it has some dust in the rear elements that can't be removed but the same dust pattern also occurs on my other lenses. I can shoot at F9 and barely noticeable, but anything past that and it shows up big time.

My stress is that I'm shooting a wedding for a couple who are really down on their luck financially (and i'm doing it for free) in 2 weeks and even though it's free I still want to give them the best image quality I can (not only that but I'm worried about all my other future images).

So, long winded story, but what else can I look at to get rid of it? They've used blowers, swabs and god knows what else so far