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XT-1 sensor and dust


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FWIW, I have much less of a problem with dust on my X-T1 than any of the DSLR's I've used over the years (D200, D2X, D700, D800).  I've never had to wet swab it - just used a blower maybe 2 or 3 times.

 

Going in i thought it would be much worse, given that there's no curtain in front of the sensor.

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The best policy on sensor dust is prevention. It takes a little time, but prevention takes less time than fixing spots on files in post. Yes you can save the repair as a preset and apply it to 300 images. But, you still have to look at each image to make sure the repair isn't messing with something else.

 

Regular cleaning and dust removal from lenses, lens & body caps, lens mounts and good storage practices will prevent a majority of dust spots on sensors. For the most part, the dust gets there from where? If it is on the rear lens cap, it will migrate to the rear of the lens and mount. From, there it is a very short trip to the sensor. Similarly, if your body is dirty and dusty, it will find its way into the body and sensor. Regular cleaning is about the only answer. 

 

I start with the blower to remove loose particles. Then, a clean brush will dislodge more stubborn particles. NEVER BLOW using your breath. You may think it is a "dry" blow, but there will always be small droplets of saliva which contains acids that damage metals and lens coatings.

 

When the entire exterior of the body and lens are cleaned, I move on to the lens, caps and mount. It makes no sense to remove the lens for cleaning if the body and exterior of the lens are covered in dust! If the rear element in the lens moves in and out, make sure you set it so the rear element is all of the way to the rear. Otherwise, the dislodged dust will find its way into the interior of your lens. Most of this is common sense. 

 

I use the same steps in the same order for everything. 1. Blow with Rocket Blower 2. Dislodge stubborn particles with a clean soft artist's brush 3. Wipe with a dean damp (never wet) cotton swab (q-tip) 4. Air dry and inspect. 

 

I see lots of people fail to clean things like caps, mounts and the lip under the mounts (body & lens). Check yours and if you see black gunk on them, the gunk is an accumulation of body (yours - not the camera's) oils. That attracts more dust & debris and is acidic. 

 

I store lenses and bodies in fresh clean zip lock type bags. Yes, there is lots of dust floating around inside your house of office. If you don't think so, wipe the top of a door with a white cloth. 

 

When my equipment is clean and put away, I wash the brushes with mild soap and water for next time. Almost forgot, when doing the q-tip clean step, frequently discard used q-tips and replace with clean fresh ones. DO NOT USE TAP WATER! The minerals will leave spots. Always use DISTILLED WATER to dampen the q-tips. Make sure they are only damp when using them to clean. If they are wet, the excess water can get into lenses and bodies. If this ever happens, you will have a bad day!

 

None of this will insure you will never get a dust spot on your sensor, But, it will be infrequent at best. 

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I store lenses and bodies in fresh clean zip lock type bags. 

 

Good one, except for the part that I quoted. I'd advise against storing your gear in airtight containers (unless you live in a rainforest). Just use your regular camera bag, but throw in a decent pack of silica gel to keep things dry. 

 

Oh, and don't use q-tips, unless you want to deal with lint too. Good ole Pec Pads do the trick so much better!…

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Most importantly, you should keep your camera facing down when changing lenses. Contrary to popular belief, switching it off is not so critical.

 

+1. I used to change lenses on wind swept mountains and still avoided dust. Body as shield, and sensor pointing down = no problem. Gravity is great!

 

For those times that things do go belly up I follow these steps

 

1. Blower: remove large dust easiy.

2. Arctic Butterfly. remove smaller hard to reach / remove dust. 

3. Swab... ONLY after all dust is removed via steps 1 & 2. Swipe once with each side, never twice otherwise you could drag something over the sensor that and scratch it. 

 

I have only had to do step 3 once and I have 2 T1's. They are no more bother than any other camera really.

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Good one, except for the part that I quoted. I'd advise against storing your gear in airtight containers (unless you live in a rainforest). Just use your regular camera bag, but throw in a decent pack of silica gel to keep things dry. 

 

Oh, and don't use q-tips, unless you want to deal with lint too. Good ole Pec Pads do the trick so much better!…

I'm in AZ where dust and low humidity are a problem. Yes, you are right about the silica gets. They go in the airtight bags. They other reason I use the bags is I'm around smokers and over time that gets in bodies and lenses. 

 

I don't really use Q-Tip brand because they do leave lint. Oddly the bargain basement brand at the dollar store is 100% cotton and I've never had a lint problem with them. The cotton is probably grown here in AZ, shipped to China and sent back to the Dollar Store. 8-) I never use one more than about a minute tops before trashing it and getting a new one. The damp end for cleaning and the dry end for drying works best. 

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I'm in AZ where dust and low humidity are a problem. Yes, you are right about the silica gets. They go in the airtight bags. They other reason I use the bags is I'm around smokers and over time that gets in bodies and lenses. 

 

I don't really use Q-Tip brand because they do leave lint. Oddly the bargain basement brand at the dollar store is 100% cotton and I've never had a lint problem with them. The cotton is probably grown here in AZ, shipped to China and sent back to the Dollar Store. 8-) I never use one more than about a minute tops before trashing it and getting a new one. The damp end for cleaning and the dry end for drying works best. 

 

In AZ I would mostly worry about mica dust. Mica particles are flat; some of them are perfectly flat, allowing for a scarily good bond with the surface of camera sensor (somewhat similar to diffusion welding). If I were living in AZ, I'd add a Lenspen SensorKlear to my camera cleaning kit – its quite good at picking up the mica dust.

 

Theoretically, in a high dust / low humidity environment you gonna need a good electrical grounding and a decent air circulation. Long term storage in an airtight container still seems to be a bad idea: various chemicals in camera and lens bodies evaporate, and an airtight enclosure might be rather destructive for all sorts of "nano coated" surfaces. I think a HEPA filter mounted as a lid on some metal or plastic box should do the trick.

 

If you're around the smokers a lot, throw a gas mask cartridge in one of your camera bag's compartments – it will absorb a lot of gunk from the air. It should be a cartridge with activated carbon; don't forget to remove both caps…  :lol: (back in the 90s I used to work in places where it was hard to see past 3-5ft because of the smoke)

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Most importantly, you should keep your camera facing down when changing lenses. Contrary to popular belief, switching it off is not so critical.

 

I'm skeptical — dust is light except over time, I don't think gravity is a big factor. I think changing lenses quickly, in whichever orientation makes that easiest, is much more important.

 

Of course. And it seems to be working just fine.

 

Anecdotally here, not as well as that on other systems? Maybe I've gotten spoiled with this on my current camera.

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  • 3 weeks later...

On the gravity subject. If you turn the camera down to avoid the dust from going up to the sensor, that will mean that the rear element of the lens will be pointing up gathering dust, won't it?

I don't know if there is some magic formula to avoid this. Just don't leave things open for too long, change lens quickly. Put the rear cap on the lens you just removed.

I actually need to check if there are dust spots on my X-E2. I have not noticed it in any pictures yet.

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On the gravity subject. If you turn the camera down to avoid the dust from going up to the sensor, that will mean that the rear element of the lens will be pointing up gathering dust, won't it?

I don't know if there is some magic formula to avoid this. 

 

Houston, we have a problem: you are theorizing. "Change your lenses with camera facing down" is a practical formula. But if you need a quasi theoretical blurb to back it up… Not all airborne particles are capable of flying up, nor all of them can fly again once settled. These are the most "dangerous" particles, the ones that an ultrasonic cleaning won't shake off the sensor.

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I recently moved from Lumix to Fuji X-T1 (and no regrets) but sensor cleaning is an issue. In all the years I owned numerous Lumix micro four-thirds cameras I didn't have to clean a sensor once, I've had an X-T1 since Christmas and had to clean the sensor twice. So either it attracts the dirt, or the ultrasonic cleaning isn't as good as the cleaning on the Lumix cameras. I use a Delkin Devices Sensor Scope kit to clean the sensor, and find it easy to use.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delkin-Devices-Complete-Cleaning-Digital/dp/B0055IAF0M

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Houston, we have a problem: you are theorizing. "Change your lenses with camera facing down" is a practical formula. But if you need a quasi theoretical blurb to back it up… Not all airborne particles are capable of flying up, nor all of them can fly again once settled. These are the most "dangerous" particles, the ones that an ultrasonic cleaning won't shake off the sensor.

 

Hehehe ok...good point

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  • 2 months later...

do you, @BarwickGreen use any adapter?

 

Many of those are made of soft aluminum and their manufacture might not always be of the highest standards, producing minute pieces of metal when inserting them on the camera bayonet receiver (made of steel) and when putting the adapted lens on the adapter.

 

I had a similar issue with my X-E1, leading me to get rid of that camera, and now I am convinced that the adapters which I used at the time might have been the culprits.

 

Look at this fotodiox the bayonet part is made of Stainless Steel.

 

It is unlikely that using one of these would ever result into any pieces of metal ( that are unlikely to have been blown around the air although everything is possible)

 

 

 

On this other adapter, the bayonet made of the same aluminum of the body.

 

It is possible that inserting it in the receiver on the camera some metal shavings can become the metal parts that you have noticed. Are they magnetic? If they are not they are very likely aluminum from something like this.

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Just had to remove a lot of particles, including more that look like tiny pieces of metal swarf, after an outing yesterday in which I swapped between two lenses half a dozen times.

 

Can you include some photos to show these? It will help a lot.

 

So far, my only 2 issue is with the XF18 F2 lens. Dust in the lens even after cleaning and I suspect it's coming from inside the lens. There is at least one article which suggest they are metal filings coming from inside the lens itself.

 

The other thing is that the metal grooves on the focusing/zoom ring is a dust magnet. They act exactly like a metal file for your dead skin.....but this is a design problem not quality issue.

 

Other than these, the XF lenses are superbly built.

 
 
Maybe these two posts might have a relation to one another?
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I pre-ordered the X-T1 when it was first announced and I carry it with me every day.  It has been a little frustrating doing battle with the dirt but
it hasn't stopped me from using the gear. I took this picture the other night... you should be able to make out what almost looks like a pubic hair 
and a whole constellation of dust bits floating above Manhattan at night. I don't know why the color went so crazy because it looks like NJ on
acid.  Fuji cleaned it once. I ordered the wet swabs the other day and I'm going to
do it myself tomorrow. I'm just a little nervous but nothing ventured is nothing ventured.

Please delete my picture

 

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I had the sensor cleaned ( for free) by Fuji when I had my X-E1 and the experience was terrible because it took 8 weeks to ship it to the lab in Germany since we don’t have one in the NL, ( the shop gave me a X-M1 while I was waiting) and it came back with a hair trapped onto the sensor!

 

Has anyone had any experience with the sensor cleaning gel sticks? There seem to be several types out there. Somehow I like the idea of this better than other systems.

 

Here is a video that I’ve found on youtube

 

@https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxKb_OqV7ng

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Can you include some photos to show these? It will help a lot.

 
 
Maybe these two posts might have a relation to one another?

 

Sadly I can't take photos of the dust on the sensor, as the only camera I have which is capable of this is my X-T1. The photos it takes just have typical dust spots. I also suspected the dust might be coming from inside a lens so I cleaned the backs of all the lenses very thoroughly a couple of months ago but it has made no difference so either it's not that, or there's dust on the rear of the lenses that I can't see with the microscope.

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I was talking of pictures of the particles not of the particles on the sensor.

 

However.

 

 

Mysterious Indeed!

 

Metal particles would likely come from somewhere, being the lens, an adapter or, but this looks impossible to me, from the camera itself.

 

Very strange.

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Sadly I can't take photos of the dust on the sensor, as the only camera I have which is capable of this is my X-T1. The photos it takes just have typical dust spots. I also suspected the dust might be coming from inside a lens so I cleaned the backs of all the lenses very thoroughly a couple of months ago but it has made no difference so either it's not that, or there's dust on the rear of the lenses that I can't see with the microscope.

 

Since you mentioned microscope, I assume that you have one. I'd recommend getting some forensic lifting tape (like this one), carefully shaking and/or blowing your sensor over exposed sticky side of it, then putting it under microscope. What looks metallic aren't necessarily metal. 

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Nothing mysterious.
Under the camera outer bayonet flange (that one with 6 small screws) there is a spring ring. It is necessary to eliminate the backlash bayonet connection. Every bayonet has a spring at one side.
When we change the lens, this spring ring rubs against the lens mount at several points. Noted metal dust can be product of that friction.

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I had the sensor cleaned ( for free) by Fuji when I had my X-E1 and the experience was terrible because it took 8 weeks to ship it to the lab in Germany since we don’t have one in the NL, ( the shop gave me a X-M1 while I was waiting) and it came back with a hair trapped onto the sensor!

 

Has anyone had any experience with the sensor cleaning gel sticks? There seem to be several types out there. Somehow I like the idea of this better than other systems.

 

Here is a video that I’ve found on youtube

 

 

 

I have one, I believe an Eyelead, and it worked great on my D610's I had. I haven't had to use it on my X-T1's so far. They don't attract dust as fast as the D610's did.

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  • 1 month later...

Has anyone tried one of the sticky gel sensor cleaners on the fuji, particularly the "Sensor Gel Stick"?  Seems a lot easier, and less expensive per clean, than the swabs.  

 

Specifically: https://photographylife.com/product/sensor-gel-stick

The product page specifically says not to use this for Fuji:

 

"Sony’s and Fuji’s proprietary coating technology on its mirrorless cameras might cause the Sensor Gel Stick to leave some residue on the surface of the sensor filter, which will require thorough wet cleaning. "

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