Tag: "camera"

Safely Cleaning Your Digital Camera’s Sensor

Safely Cleaning Your Digital Camera’s Sensor

Spots, they are everywhere. No matter how many times you use “Blow Off” or “Dust Off”, they remain exactly where they shouldn’t be. The question is how to get them off without damaging the sensor.

Canned air can only do so much, and continuously sending the camera bodies back to Canon, Nikon or wherever are not a viable option. Swabs such as VisibleDust, Green Clean, Senor Swab and Eclipse are expensive, messy and hard to use. I should know because I have tried them all. After multiple passes there is often more residue on the sensor than when the process started. Patience is the important key.Swabs

I am not a patient person.

Traveling the world, and shooting in some of the dustiest conditions, sensors on my cameras have to be cleaned every night back at a hotel. I don’t have hours of time to spend cleaning multiple cameras, but likewise I cannot afford any damage to the sensor. So what is the magical answer to the question of safely cleaning the dust magnet known as the camera’s sensor?

I can thank my former assistant, and now Providence, RI photographer, Scott Indermaur for the solution to the problem. The solution is inexpensive, easy to perform, safe for the sensor and most of all, works!

Here are the tools you need for the process:

Mar 29, 2009 | 0 comments View Post
Waiting to Switch to the EOS 5D Mark II

Waiting to Switch to the EOS 5D Mark II

Canon 5D MarkIIWhen Canon first announced the upgrade to the EOS 5D, I was excited. I immediately put my order in with my favorite salesman at Calumet, Victor Fry. I was scheduled to receive one of the first units shipped.

I went to Canon’s product website (http://tinyurl.com/5noq8r) to review the product and check on early customer ratings and reviews. Canon has two unsolved problems, so thank god I was on assignment when the camera was ready to ship.

The new EOS 5D Mark II is a unique camera. It has a stunning 21.1-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with DIGIC 4 Image Processor, a vast ISO Range of 100-6400 (expandable to ISO L: 50, H1: 12800 and H2: 25600), plus EOS technologies like Auto Lighting Optimizer and Peripheral Illumination Correction. It can shoot up to 3.9 fps, has 9 AF points plus 6 AF assist points, a new 98% coverage viewfinder, a 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA) and a rugged build.

It also supports high definition live view video. It is this feature that is also producing one of the two problems the camera is experiencing.

I talked to Bob Malish, the Canon Pro Rep for Texas about the current problems. He explained that Canon was working to correct a vertical noise banding problem that only occurs in the small raw format, and a black dot problem on the video that occurs in extreme contrast situations. He said that Canon did have a work around for the noise issue (http://tinyurl.com/3w82qo), but not a complete correction.

“Right now there are no good answers to why these problems occur,” Malish explained.

After gathering this information, I have decided to hold off on my purchase. Although I probably will not use either of the features that are experiencing problems that often in my work, I don’t want to have to send the camera back to the shop. This is also because as of January 1, Canon is also changing all the rules for their professional services members (http://tinyurl.com/6smsyr). The are starting to charge for what has been a free service all these years. Different rates get your different preferential treatment. For $500 a year you get everything handed to you on a silver platter, and for $100 a year you get two day service on repairs. Oh well, I guess I will have to get the old checkbook out.

Dec 31, 2008 | 1 comment View Post
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