“I first heard from the Don’t Even Think of Doing This Yourself camp. Representatives of this group state that attempting to clean a sensor voids the warranty on some cameras and that the chance you take in doing it yourself is far outweighed by what you risk—completely destroying the camera. Cited risks are blowers that put more gunk on a sensor than they remove, damage from the use of compressed air, damage due to a shutter suddenly snapping closed because a camera’s battery dies mid-cleaning, and a scratched sensor (actually, its protective covering). These folks contend that Taking It To The Shop is the wisest course.

Then there are the What, You’ve Successfully Taken Apart an iPod? Just Be Careful and You Can Do This Too folks. This group understands that my Nikon D70 is going to earn its fair share of sensor dust, and taking it to the shop time and again will eventually become an unreasonably expensive proposition. (Handing your camera over for cleaning services can cost $30 to $40, according to the estimates I’ve gotten. And that can add up over time.) With the right tools and techniques (and a measure of care), these people contend, I can do it myself.”

“More-cautious experts will tell you that you must plug your camera into an AC adapter when cleaning the sensor. This is good advice as it’s a Very Bad Thing when you’ve got the tip of a blower inside your camera and the mirror snaps closed because the camera’s run out of power. Since I don’t have an AC adapter, I charged the camera’s battery fully and worked as quickly as safety would allow.

Blasting away dust with a blower

Step 1 was to use the blower to blast the dust from the sensor. For this sort of work you want a blower with a big bulb that can deliver a good blast. You do not, however, want a blower with a brush attached. The brush can collect dust of its own and scratch the sensor cover if it comes in contact with the sensor.

Compressed air is not a good idea because it contains a propellant. If you accidentally turn the can upside down, you’ve just doused your sensor with that propellant (not good).

After a few good blasts from the blower, I put the camera back together, took it outside, and snapped a photo of a white piece of paper. I loaded the resulting image into iPhoto and adjusted the exposure and contrast levels so I could see any specks. The largest speck was gone, but a few smaller specks remained. Subsequent blasts with the blower didn’t remove them.