Sensor Dust Frustration!

If you look closely you can see some really nasty sensor dust and oil. (click to enlarge)

I've been stuck at home for the past few weeks because of my two eye surgeries (the doctor recommended I avoid all of the people and contaminated surfaces in public where I could acquire a cold, bronchitis, pneumonia or the flu otherwise the surgeries would have to be postponed and rescheduled—I've already been waiting 2 months), I've been spending quite a bit of time with my Lightroom catalog.  My catalog is generally set up by geographic location since my photography is generally travel, nature, landscape, etc.  Since I've been digging deep into the catalog, I've discovered too many images from several years ago not filed correctly and not properly keyworded. 

As a part of that process I've also been editing some images I've come across—ones that have never even been white balanced and luminance corrected.  In the process, while looking at some that were made very recently, I discovered that I had quite a bit of nasty dust on my Olympus E-M1 Mark II's sensor.  I had to ask myself where did it come from?  I've never even had to clean any of my Olympus camera sensors in eight years as the Olympus' dust removal system is the best in the business.  It is the gold standard.  Time to get it clean.

First things first—a gentle wisp of air to loosen and dislodge the dust.  I tried using a Rocket blower over and over with little effect so I then went to the next step and employed a sensor swab to get the dust off.  No dice.  I repeated the efforts, applying more and more pressure, but I wasn't making any progress.  Getting very frustrated, I grabbed my canned air, put the nozzle inside the camera, shouted a few words I shouldn't  repeat and started blasting the sensor with the air—wide open!  All that did is put some ugly oily residue on my sensor along with the nasty dust.  Crap!  Its worse.  What next?  

Thinking about it for a few minutes without coming up with any viable options other than sending my camera to the manufacturer, my frustration was about to get the better of me as I felt I wanted to just throw the camera out into the backyard (back garden).  I thought I would buy something new, like the E-M1 Mark III or the upcoming Fujifilm X-T4, but then I thought to myself—I am NOT going to let microscopic pieces of dust beat me!  Never!  I promised myself that I would figure this out.  Time to step up the effort.  WHATEVER IT TAKES became my mantra!  Grrrrr!

Since Olympus says my camera is "weather resistant" and I've seen You Tube videos of reviewers putting E-M1 Mark II under a faucet with no harm, I decided I would place it under the kitchen faucet face up and run a heavy stream of really hot water over the sensor.  I thought that the hot water would more easily loosen the dust and emulsify the oily residue from the canned air.  Then, just to be sure, since I already had the camera at the kitchen sink, I grabbed a bottle brush, squirted some thick blue Dawn dishwashing liquid (the best stuff out there for removing oil and grease!) onto the sensor and really scrubbed it.  I must have gone over that sensor with the bottle brush 50 times to really make sure I got everything off.  Now we're getting something accomplished, I thought.

I then walked to the bathroom, grabbed my wife's hair dryer and thoroughly dried the camera and sensor.  Since I was really getting tired of messing with this stupid camera at this point, I put the dryer on high so the camera would dry as quickly as possible.  I had already wasted enough time and just wanted to get back to work on my images.  

After it was dry, I put the lens back on, went outside and made a couple of test shots and checked them in Lightroom.  That doggone dust was still there!  Are you kidding me?  Luckily the canned air oily residue was gone.  At this point I'm thinking I'm just going to vie up photography totally rather than have to deal with this kind of frustration.  But then I thought better as at least I'm making some progress.  I felt just a little better but I'm not yet ready to give up.

I had one more trick up my sleeve.  Back to the bathroom where I put some toothpaste on my wife's electric toothbrush and gave that bad boy a good scrubbing.  The smaller toothbrush was able to get into the nooks and crannies the larger bottle brush missed.  I chose the toothbrush and toothpaste so I didn't have to waste time washing and drying the camera all over again.  I just wanted this ugly episode over NOW!  I grabbed some clean shop rags from my garage to get all of the toothpaste out as I didn't want to foul some of our good face towels and make my wife angry with me.  I've not told her about using her electric toothbrush and I would appreciate it if none of you did either.  I still need to live here.

Again, out the door to make some additional test images.  I imported them and looked at them in Lightroom.  Finally the dust is gone!  Now I can go back to editing my photos.  It was as though a 500 pound weight was lifted off my shoulders.  I smiled slyly knowing I beat the dust.  Yes!

So the lesson learned is forget brushing your teeth.  In fact, have them all pulled before you are 18 and you'll save yourself a lifetime of trouble!  Use that toothbrush and toothpaste to remove sensor dust.  Works every time!

Now, if you've read this far, you now have a better idea of my sense of humor!  This is what happens when you are stuck at home and have too much time on your hands.  One of my philosophies is that you have to laugh everyday to stay young!  Hope you got a good laugh!

P.S.  The image at the top of the post is an actual image of oil and dust on the sensor of  the Nikon D800E I used to own.  Nikon's dust removal system is almost non-functional when compared to Olympus'.  I cleaned it off but not using the ludicrous and sensor destroying method described here.

P.P.S.  In all reality, using Olympus M4/3 cameras now for 8 years, I've never had to clean the sensor.  Thank you Olympus!

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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