Help needed cleaning Canon 450D!

liquid_rockface

Active Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
238
Hi guys

I bought a Canon 450D last week and I've been really enjoying it. Super camera! Anyhow so I was outside photographing airplanes when I changed lenses to go back to my normal 18-55mm instead of my telephoto.

It seems that two specks of dust got in to the camera when I changed the lenses, and they are only showing up in the viewfinder. The photographs look fine.

So from what I understand, it's probably on the focusing screen, or (less likely) on the mirror.

I bought a fancy blower (www.visibledust.com) and I tried blowing the dust out today, but it didn't seem to help. In fact, one dust particle apparently went out, but another settled in another place!

So my question is, what should I do, if anything. Truth is that it's quite small particles and I don't see them if I don't look for them, but I'm a perfectionist and it is bugging me a bit. Am I maybe not using the blower properly? I held the camera upside down above my head and blew the blower into the mirror box being careful not to get too close. I cannot see the dust inside so I guess it's quite small particles. Maybe I needed to work in better light? I was working in the bathroom because I understand that there's far less dust there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I thought about buying some cleaning products, but they are incredibly expensive here ($30-$50) and that is for makes that I haven't heard of on the internet. I'm in Tel Aviv and for some reason there are not many mainstream cleaning products here.
 
Unless they're so big you can't see through the VF, do nothing. It's a small nuicance, but it doesn't matter.
 
I'm pretty sure that if the dust is a bit blurry it's on the mirror, if it's sharp and dark it's on the focusing screen. Also, you should take a flashlight and point it at the mirror, if the dust is on the mirror that's the easiest way to see it.

It's funny that you should bring this up because the other day I tried to clean off the mirror and focus screen on my camera (meh, it's just an old 300D that I got for a hundred bucks, it's not exactly precious and I definitely don't baby it - the first thing I did with it was rip it open to replace a piece inside) and used a lintless lens cloth. The mirror remains fine after being wiped with a dry cloth but I didn't risk using cleaning liquid on the mirror because as I understand it SLR mirrors are basically just the bare reflective surface. I don't see any risk in wiping the focus screen with a lens cloth (I used my pinky to get up there) since they don't scratch lenses (at least they don't if you're gentle). I also went one further and took my focus screen out to clean it (it's cleaner now but appears to still have dust on it, grrr*) but managed to scratch it a little bit while struggling to get the locking bracket piece back in (big oops, luckily it's on the edge).

BTW, nommy, in my case it was far beyond a minor nuisance, sooooooo much dust.


* edit: actually, nevermind, no dust now. yay.
 
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