Dusty Spring...

And not a Field in sight.

Yes. In the past few days I've been suffering with problems with my camera. I'd discovered some spots on the images that I was taking, but they perplexed me. I noticed that they appeared on some photos but not others. They were definitley spots though and they were annoying the hell out of me.
I took the lens off (sticking the body cap on the camera) and cleaned it. I put it back on - spots still there.
I changed the lens with another one - spots still there.

So I took the lens off, locked the mirror up (so I could see the sensor) and had a look. There was a little dust on the sensor, but it didn't correspond to the dust on the images. I was stumped.

So in desperation, I resorted to doing what I normally do when things go wrong for me - I went off on one and had a go at everyone except the idiot responsible - me. This is a personality flaw of mine and one that I'm trying to remedy.

Anyway, I decided that the first thing to do was to have the sensor cleaned. I didn't want to do this myself though, because the sensor is a smooth shiny precise expensive piece of technology, and if you scratch it, you pay through the nose, ears, mouth and all other orifices to have it fixed. Nikon also advise against cleaning the sensor (beyond blowing dust off with a blower) yourself. The section on sensor cleaning in the manual basically says "Nikon strongly recommend that you do not attempt to clean the sensor yourself, if you do attempt to clean it, you will invalidate your warranty, default on your mortgage, and people will laugh and point at you in the street. Anyway, here's how to clean it". Fair enough, I'll get someone professional to clean it for me. But was dust the actual problem?

It can't hurt to take a blower to it to get the dust out I spose, at which point my mate pointed out that not only did Nikon charge him £90 per camera to clean out the dust from his camera, but it also took them 2 months to get the cameras back to him. (Note to Nikon: I have no proof, I'm just going on what I was told, so don't sue me please! PS: I love your cameras, can I have a free D3X? I promise to do a fair and accurate review?)

"Bugger that" I thought, I'll have a word with a couple of local places to see if they can help. I didn't pay [equivalent at current exchange rates] $1600USD for a camera just to not-be-able to use it for two months. So I sent an email to a local camera place who shall remain nameless:

To: [address witheld]
Subject: Nikon D200 Sensor Clean

Hi there. After buying myself a nice Nikon D200 as an expensive present, it

has taken me a grand total of six weeks to get dust on the sensor. I can't

blow the dust off, and as per the manual, I'm not really willing to attempt

to manually clean the sensor myself.

Is this a service you offer? If so, would you be able to clean the sensor at

the time, or would the camera need to go elsewhere?

Would you be able to give me any indication (if you are able to clean the

sensor for me) of the cost involved?

Many thanks!

Cool. Covered all the bases, which was good. They replied quickly too. I was rather impressed.

To: Squid
Subject: Re Nikon D200 Sensor Clean

We sell the kits you need to maintain the camera.

They cost £90.00 and include all bits to do the job.

Regards
Person.

Bollocks. Well they got back to me quickly, which was good. And that's about the only good thing about it. Obviously hadn't read past the first paragraph. Still everyone's only human, so I won't hold it against them, but I didn't have the heart to send an email back saying "listen you idiot, that's not what I asked", because I'm not that hostile a person. Well I am, but as you noticed, I keep the majority of my hostility to myself :). No, really.
Admittedly, my attempts to blow the dust off were confined to blowing hard into the camera (holding it reasonably far from me so as to not get spit in it - that WOULD be an embarrasing and expensive inconvenience) so like I say I'm going to buy a blower and see if I have any more luck with that. But why didn't the dust on the sensor correspond with the spots on the images?

My dad directed me to the aptly named cleaningdigitalcameras.com which gave lots of useful information that seemed to be a toned down version of Nikon's "If you break it you will die but this is how you do it" advice.

As I was reading, I was there with my camera taking reference photos - eventually taking a few photos of a white sheet of paper just so the dust would show up, which it did.
I noted that there were about 6 spots on the image.

All of a sudden, a thought occured to me.
I put the camera aside and took out a spare lens. I held the lens to my eye, holding it like a telescope, and adjusted the distance between the lens and my eye until I got a clear image.
And I knew.

Take a magnifying glass, look through it, adjust the distance between the magnifying glass and your eye, and you will know too.

The lens inverts the image and projects it upside down onto the image sensor! How stupid, how absolutely stupid of me not to realise! This is secondary school stuff that they teach to 12 year olds! The reason the dust doesn't correspond to the spots on the image is because the sensor takes an upside-down snapshot of what's in front of the lens! Up is down, left is right.
Some damn photographer I am, I sell my images (okay, image) online, but I forgot this basic, basic principle of photography!!!

I flipped the mirror up and had another look at the sensor - the dust corresponded exactly to the spots on the image.

CASE CLOSED.

Now all I need to do is go and get the dust out of there. I'll try this rocket blower first, they're supposed to be good. Ignore the "around" bit, that's just for liability reasons.

So.

What else have I been up to? Well, since my last blog, not much. I came home last night, had my chips as usual and then went to sleep. I woke up at 10PM. Rolled over, grunted and snorted in the manner of the half-asleep and next thing, it was 00:00am. So I got up, chilled out for a couple of hours, spent some time on the computer, read about a few movies, etc, war of the worlds, signs, poltergeist etc, then stuck the TV on and went back to bed.

What followed was a four hour long series of nightmares that literally involved me sitting upright in that manner people with nightmares do, and nearly cracking my head on the cupboards above my head. I mean the dreams were GOOD, but they were of BAD stuff. You know, like my response to really bad events and stuff.

I spose I played prey too much as well, because that featured in it too, kinda.

Sooo, my nephew's present is due to arrive tomorrow PM, at which point we can go and get it assembled, and maybe I can get back that £30 my sister owes me - seriously, I'm skint.
My nephew's coming over tomorrow which will be good, he came to see me tonight, the lil fella, and I was asleep most of the time :(.

Still, I'll do my best to make it up to the little guy.

Anyway, I'm off to drink vast quantities of beer, and go to bed at stupid o clock. Hope you all have a nice night, and a nice bank holiday weekend.