Help for my friend...she is very worried about her brand new camera and I do not know how to help...

[EdN]

OK, where can she get it, and can she do it herself or should she turn it in to professionals? Is there any chance she damaged anything already? I tested her camera and I cannot tell if it is doing anything weird. I do not know however how would I be able to tell. I saw the spots when I looked through her camera's viewfinder, we did not download images but I suspect there is no impact on images, we will try tomorrow. I just did not have time today to assist her with everything. She swears she did not touch sensor.


If she uses the blower and the spots are still there, what can she do to get that spotless viewfinder I have on my camera? And how the heck did it get dirty?

Those hand held "rocket" blowers are available at most camera stores. Shouldn't have to pay more than around $6.00 for one. They are easy to use (not sure about your friend), just remove the lense, point the nozzle at the mirror and internals of the SLR, tip the SLR so the lens housing is open to the ground (for dust to fall away) and keep on squeezing the bulb. Repeat as often as you want, redirect the nozzle to the pentaprism surface, and keep blowing until you are happy.


If your friend *did not* touch the sensor, that's 90% of your worries gone. If you can take shots with the camera and the shutter works properly and mirror retracts, most of your remaining 10% is also gone. To be sure, you need to take shots, download them, and look throughout the image at 100% to check for artifacts, defects, and other problems.


And how the dust got there? You have electronic equipment that can generate static. Static attracts dust. Your camera is new so it came out of a clean room during assembly. Hers you say was used so whoever put on the original mileage could have gotten dust inside through taking too much time to change lenses, being careless changing lenses in dusty or dryenvironments, etc.

[BES]

OK, where can she get it, and can she do it herself or should she turn it in to professionals? Is there any chance she damaged anything already? I tested her camera and I cannot tell if it is doing anything weird. I do not know however how would I be able to tell. I saw the spots when I looked through her camera's viewfinder, we did not download images but I suspect there is no impact on images, we will try tomorrow. I just did not have time today to assist her with everything. She swears she did not touch sensor.


If she uses the blower and the spots are still there, what can she do to get that spotless viewfinder I have on my camera? And how the heck did it get dirty?

Those hand held "rocket" blowers are available at most camera stores. Shouldn't have to pay more than around $6.00 for one. They are easy to use (not sure about your friend), just remove the lense, point the nozzle at the mirror and internals of the SLR, tip the SLR so the lens housing is open to the ground (for dust to fall away) and keep on squeezing the bulb. Repeat as often as you want, redirect the nozzle to the pentaprism surface, and keep blowing until you are happy.


If your friend *did not* touch the sensor, that's 90% of your worries gone. If you can take shots with the camera and the shutter works properly and mirror retracts, most of your remaining 10% is also gone. To be sure, you need to take shots, download them, and look throughout the image at 100% to check for artifacts, defects, and other problems.


And how the dust got there? You have electronic equipment that can generate static. Static attracts dust. Your camera is new so it came out of a clean room during assembly. Hers you say was used so whoever put on the original mileage could have gotten dust inside through taking too much time to change lenses, being careless changing lenses in dusty or dryenvironments, etc.
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Ed


Thanks, great explanation. I am pretty sure she did not touch sensor, she is pretty freaked out and by now she would have told me. I am not sure if anyone else (kids) didn't...but I guess that would be a hard one for them to figure out. She told me she moved the mode to manual cleaning, mirror locked up, she saw sensor and froze. Good. But that happened after she went to town on that mirrow and pentaprism, I suppose. From what I learned, she was quite gentle with mirror but used rubbing alcohol, but was not as delicate on the other one...not sure, I have not seen the action so for her sake I hope she is remembering it correctly. I noticed things working well, I took few pics and they showed OK on the LCD, but we did not download anything. I will do what you suggested and look with her tomorrow at images on monitor once downloaded. Thanks so much for your help.