Dust in CMOS

[Carlos_E._Martinez]

This is something new to me, which a friend of mine yesterday told me about: the risk of getting dust in the CMOS cell when changing lenses on HDSLR cameras.

Static electricity seems to attract dust to the CMOS when the camera is opened on location, which is hardly dust-free, and it's not something you can clean yourself.

I wonder how true this statement is, because I do not have such a camera and it's something I'm seriously considering to do soon... hopefully.

Dust will show as speckles on the image.

Any comments?

 

[Barry_Green]

Yes it happens, and most cameras have a "sensor cleaning" function designed to vibrate the sensor to knock the dust loose.

 

[Stephenh]

You could hire a clean room and do lens changes in that!!rogar-Love(DBG): Just kidding. As Barry says most modern DSLR have a sensor cleaning function built in. Works 90% of the time. You can buy sensor wipes and clean the sensor also, but you have to be careful with this operation. Some cameras have a mirror lockup function for this operation. I find keeping the mirror box facing downward when removing and replacing lens can greatly assist in not allowing dust particles into the mirror box area. The other maintenance I carry out from time to time using a Rocket Blower is hold the camera lens mount facing down and blow short bursts of air past and slightly into the mirror area with can clean out any particles before finding there way back to the sensor area. Just good housekeeping in general.

 

[Samuel H]

If you're worried that the sensor may have got some dust, take the lens off, turn the camera on and put it on live view (so the mirror is lifted), put the camera facing down, and blow some air inside. So far this has been enough for me. If you want to go deeper, check this: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/05/the-lensrentals-lens-cleaning-methods - http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-clean-a-camera-sensor