How do you change lenses and keep it clean. And keep your sensors clean?

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Deer Film

Well-known member
I have about 8 lenses I use with my D7100. I am concerned that I want to do it correctly and avoid getting dust and stuff in my camera and sensors.
How do you change your lens and what techniques you do? Also when you are out in the field or on the job, and away from your clean office.

I love using different lenses, so is it bad to change a lot?
Also when it comes to cleaning your sensors or the inside of the camera, what are some hints.

And last, if I want to check to see if I have dust, is there a way to to a test shot, like take a picture of a white background to check for specks.
Thanks
 
Deer Film said:
I have about 8 lenses I use with my D7100. I am concerned that I want to do it correctly and avoid getting dust and stuff in my camera and sensors.
How do you change your lens and what techniques you do? Also when you are out in the field or on the job, and away from your clean office.

I love using different lenses, so is it bad to change a lot?
Also when it comes to cleaning your sensors or the inside of the camera, what are some hints.

And last, if I want to check to see if I have dust, is there a way to to a test shot, like take a picture of a white background to check for specks.
Thanks
Click to expand...

First you should understand that no matter what you do, you will get dust on the sensor at some point so you should use a blower when needed first. If the blower does not remove all [enough] of the dust, you can use a wet cleaning kit.

When I change my lens I'll normally keep my camera bodies upside down to help keep the dirt out. Sounds simple but it works in all but the most dusty areas. I also come from the old days of film and we changed rolls of film in a changing bag to keep out light. I have used a changing bag to change a lens before but I would file that under "overkill" unless you're in a dust storm.

To check for dust spots you can use any evenly lit light color background and then ajust the contrast/brightness in your photo editor.
 
Don't forget to try the built in sensor cleaning. It works by vibrating the sensor; below the sensor is a band of sticky stuff that catches the dirt that falls off. So your camera needs to be in the normal shooting position (so the dust falls into the sticky stuff and not elsewhere). The controls for this are in the menu system.

You can set this to do it on shutdown, but I wonder about vibrating the sensor several times a day - on video shoots, I shut down to swap out HDMI, change cards, or change batteries so there's plenty of power cycling that would activate the cleaning. I tend to use it before each shoot, and I keep an eye out for dust in stills or footage.

I also do the old-school trick of blowing off the rear of a lens before I put it on the camera (yep, just from my mouth) and also blowing out rear caps before I put them on the lens. I've done this on lenses I've owned for 15+ years and still use daily - I'm sure there's some humidity from my breath, but apparently not enough to cause problems. On shoots where I have table space to lay out gear and lenses, I try to have an air can. Not for the sensor!!! Just for lenses and caps. Blow off your whole camera body and all your lenses, front, back & sides, since dust has a way of getting around. And pack something like a beach towel to lay out for your lenses, cards, tools, etc.

And every now and then, disassemble your cases/bags - remove everything, remove all the dividers, and vacuum 'em out - you'll be AMAZED how much crap can collect in the corners, especially if you shoot outdoors or in locations with "character". I also tie bandanas to all my case handles - you never know when you need a quick wipe.

And, finally... wear work gloves for load-in and setup (if you're gripping as well as shooting). All of your cables and stingers live on the floor and are like sandpaper tubes. It SUCKS having gritty, dirty hands about the time you switch from setup to shooting - I hate that with a passion. Clean hands mean less crap to migrate to your gear and feels more professional at some psychological level, to me anyway. And every couple weeks, take a damp rag and go over ALL your cables - power cords, XLR, HDMI, stingers, the cords attached to your lights. Take a look at that rag when you're done - pretty amazing.
 
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