Canon® EOS Digital Photography Photo Workshop

10.4. ASSIGNMENT

Simple CMOS Spot Removal

You're bound to get a CMOS spot on your sensor, sooner or later, and it's good to know how to simply clean your CMOS, ridding it of movable dust particles. Take your time and carefully follow the instructions in this chapter and in your camera's manual. Assuming you've determined your camera indeed has spots on the CMOS (don't put them there just to try this assignment!), take a photo of something that you can easily reproduce, such as of a clear blue sky. Review the images on the computer and check for spots. Are they in the same location from image to image? If so, you are ready to begin the cleaning process. Using the simple sensor-cleaning method described in this chapter, use a bulb blower to clean your sensor.

Once again, take several shots — preferably of the same subject with the same exposure. Once again, check to see if the spots are gone, still there, or perhaps in a different location in the image. Were you successful? Have you determined that you need to do more to clean the sensor, such as using the wet method, or taking it to a technician?

While in the desert outside of Cairo, Egypt, I was shooting for a long time and somehow a large dust particle — highly visible on my LCD — got onto my image sensor. I had many more shots to take and didn't want my sensor dirty. While riding a camel, I chose a nonwindy moment, and, underneath my jacket, used a bulb blower to clean the sensor on my 1D Mark IIn. You can see the shots I took ...