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Anonymous's picture
Submitted By: Anonymous
Dirty specks on D70 sensor - how to clean?
Posted: July 25, 2005 - 8:37pm

My D70 sensor (well, the hot-mirror filter in front of it) has several specks. A blower will not remove those. I tried the Kinetronics Speckgrabber. This tool seems to grab most of the specks, but seems to leave some kind of smear on the filter, noticeable by darker spots on my images, particularly noticeable in blue sky areas. I have on order Photographic Solutions Eclipse cleaning fluid and Sensor Swabs, so those will be my next try.
Nikon says not to touch the filter with any product, but appears to sell a cleaning kit that does just that in Japan.
Do you have any words of wisdom for me? Thanks!

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Anonymous's picture
Submitted By: Anonymous
#1
Re: Dirty specks on D70 sensor - how to clean?
Posted: July 27, 2005 - 7:12pm

UPDATE!
I used a blower I just bought to blow some dust specks off of my D70 sensor filter and more specks appeared! After some more blowing, you guessed it, more specks. I wrapped a lint-free piece of cleaning tissue around the blower and blew into the tissue about 10 times. There appeared some specks on the tissue and many more specks became visible using a loupe. It appears that this particular blower, by the name of Hurricane and bought at a local pro photo shop, emits small pieces of "rubber" that now cling to the sensor filter and all over on the camera's inside. This has now become a cleaning job for the Nikon service center in El Segundo, CA and will cost maybe $250 to $400 and a couple of weeks time. I have an appointment tomorrow morning with the pro photo shop manager to discuss who is going to pay for this.
So, PLEASE, take a very close look at and TEST your blower before aiming it at your camera's insides! AND don't use a speckgrabber on your sensor filter!
Your feedback/inputs are really appreciated.

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lightontheland's picture
Submitted By: lightontheland
Location: Crossville, TN
Joined: Jun 2 2005
Posts:
#2
Re: Dirty specks on D70 sensor - how to clean?
Posted: July 27, 2005 - 7:33pm

Ouch! Sorry to hear that, Frans. I have a Hurricane which I've used for several years for blowing dust off both sensors and negatives - never had a bit of trouble. Good luck recovering your cleaning cost.

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Anonymous's picture
Submitted By: Anonymous
#3
Re: Dirty specks on D70 sensor - how to clean?
Posted: July 30, 2005 - 1:04pm

Hello Bill,

I've learned in the meantime that there may be several different manufacturers producing Hurricane blowers, so you may have a good one in contrast to mine. AFTER I got this problem and spent more time researching the internet I found www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com and they warn against the Hurricane brand of blowers because of exactly the problem that I experienced.
My D70 is being cleaned now professionally and I ordered a couple of Giottos Rocket Air Blowers that get rave reviews by those who use them. Keep my fingers crossed.

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Anonymous's picture
Submitted By: Anonymous
#4
Re: Dirty specks on D70 sensor - how to clean?
Posted: August 24, 2005 - 6:05pm

UPDATE
Got my D70 back today after 4 weeks. Nikon cleaned it for free! It is a LOT cleaner than it was, although there are 5 or 6 tiny specks left on the sensor. I guess that is about as good as it gets. When I get tired of retouching my images, I'll clean my sensor again, this time using a Giottos Rocket blower and special swabs and fluid.
Beware of Hurricane blowers!

Frans Waterlander
frans2001@netzero.net

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