DISCLAIMER:
I am not responsible for any damage you do to your camera using information contained on this page!! I am not an expert on camera sensor cleaning and make no guarantees of any kind. You may risk scratching your sensor IR filter, coatings, or even the glass window itself. Use this info at your own risk.

My Canon 1D sensor cleaning... If you have a digital SLR, you know the major problem is dust on your sensor. At least with film, each frame is a new sensor, while with the digital SLR a piece of dust on your sensor means a black dot on every photo. SLR manufacturers should put more research into anti-dust methods, like electrostatic repulsion or something. The reason we see dust on the sensor at small apertures is that (1) the dust is directly in the focal plane of the sensor, and (2) the rays are straight. If they could move the final sensor cover out of the focus plane, there would be less problems with dust except at extremely small apertures (like f/22).

Here I attempt to clean my sensor and show you f/8 at various stages (Using the EF 50mm f/1.8 II at small apertures intentionally out of focus to see the dust on the sensor). For my photos, I consider cleanliness of f/8 to be important, even though I normally use larger apertures.

My advice is if you can tolerate your dust at f/5.6 and occasionally have to use the clone stamp at f/8, you should probably leave your sensor as is. Don't worry if you see dust at f/16 unless you use it often (for macro photography or landscape, for example). For most of us, we like large aperture lenses for fast action, indoor shooting and artistic stuff, so dust is less of a problem. I can't tell you how many times I thought I could make the sensor cleaner and only made it worse!

Hopefully, through this page, you'll see that you don't need a $150 vacuum-sealed, cleanroom-packaged cleaning kit for your camera and can do a great job with simple materials. You will have to decide what the risk level is for your equipment. Maybe if I was using a new Canon 5D I would be more nervous about cleaning my own sensor, but I have found the sensor to be much more robust than many cleaning kit companies lead you to believe. For me, I wouldn't hesitate to clean my own sensor now.

My conclusion is that the home made wiper easily did the job against a hyped-up commercial item (Image and name of discontinued product removed as per request on 4/10/08) -- it could have been because I had "non-loose" dust on my sensor, which the company claimed their filament brush couldn't clean.

Never use a hand blower on your sensor!!! (see below!)

(Image and name of discontinued product removed as per request on 4/10/08)
Tool #1: This was an electrostatic filament-type cleaning brush. It's supposed to pick up loose dust particles by lightly running it over the sensor. It had a complicated tricky cleaning procedure before you use it.

Tool #2: A homemade wet sensor wiper from a piece of plastic with a microfiber lens cloth taped to it.
Very simple and slapped together, but (as we'll see), it works wonders! Also shown is a bottle of "Rexton Optyl 7"
which is supposedly a very high quality optical cleaner. It quickly evaporates from the sensor without leaving
residue of any kind. I picked it up for about $4 at www.sciplus.com a few years ago. They still sell it
(type in "Rexton" as the search keyword). Fabulous stuff. I use it to clean my sensor and all my lenses.

A close up of the home made tool. Nothing but a piece of microfiber cloth taped to a piece of plastic...
I just get the tip wet with Optyl 7 and swipe the sensor a few times with light/moderate pressure.

Here's before starting, at f/6.3. I often had to clone stamp out the dirt in
the upper left corner unless there happened to be a lot of detail in the pitcure there.

At f/11 before starting.

At f/22 before starting.

Bad Idea: The Hand Blower.

At f/8, after using a hand blower. Never use a hand blower on your sensor!!!
Hand blowers are fine for blowing big dust off lenses, but they don't work on sensors!!
I'll spare you the gory pictures at f/22 (unless you want to See it!).

Let's try the electrostatic filament brush.

At f/8 after first swipe with the commercial electrostatic sensor cleaning brush. Not bad - there was a lot of loose dust blown by the hand blower.

At f/8 after second swipe with the commercial item. Some dust won't come off.

At f/8 after a third swipe. Not working, but let's try one more time.

At f/8 after a fourth swipe. Okay, that sucks. I'm worse off than when I began the cleaning!!

Home-Made Tool Time!

At f/8 after first swipe with the home made sensor wipe. It already looks much better than the electrostatic brush.
But I thought I could do better. Notice the streak (not a scratch!!) on the bottom right.

At f/8 after second swipe with the home made sensor wipe. Looks better still, but I see another streak. I'll try one more time.

At f/8 after third swipe with the home made sensor wipe. Wow, that's better than it's ever been!
I decided to stop here thinking I'd probably make it worse by trying again.

Even at f/22 it looks great!