CopperHill SensorSweep

Originally Posted Jan 01,2012

I promised to provide a few tips this month on gear maintenance.  One small but Extremely important tool is the sensor brush which you use for cleaning the sensor inside your camera.

The only brush that is worth laying down any money for is the 1/2″ wide, synthetic filament, India made, static sensor brush that is made by Copper Hill called the SensorSweep.  At a price of ~$23 this is an absolute must for your gear kit.

There are two reasons for the high marks:

1. This brush filaments will NOT SPLAY over the edges. This is very important because your sensor (especially those ‘virgin’ sensors) has a slight filmy lubricant left over from the production process which you don’t want to get caught in the brush fibers.
2. You need to create a static charge on the brush (via Giottos Red Rocket air blaster) so when you put the brush on the sensor, it will ‘LIFT’ particles off the sensor and onto the brush.  This brush is made of  fibers which will hold that initial ‘air blast’ static charge.

Cleaning your sensor is a three step process with many sub steps.

1. Prep yourself and area for sensor cleaning
2. Pre Mirror Lockup camera box cleaning
3. Post Mirror Lockup sensor cleaning

I’ll provide here the workflow which utilizes the Copper Hill SensorSweep

Post Mirror LockUP sensor cleaning instructions:

1. Insure that your camera battery is fully charged.
2. Set your camera Mirror Lock for Sensor cleaning function to “on”.
3. Use a sensor light magnifier loop and look at your sensor for particles. Look for location, size and type.
   1. Your equipment choices here are:
      1. Visible Dust Brite Vue XL ($90)
4. There are only 2 types of particles on your sensor, after a while you’ll be able to notice :
   1. Inorganic – usually dry and reflective – typically easily removed
      1. dust,dirt
      2. minute metal fillings from lens/camera
      3. synthetic filaments
   2. Organic – usually ‘wet’ – typically require a wet chemical swab cleaning,
      1. oils,flux from sensor production process
      2. spores, pollen
      3. eyelashes & hair includes follicles
      4. bug parts
5. Removing Inorganic’s: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT – DO THIS FIRST- to prevent possible sensor scratching
   1. Turn your camera body over so that sensor is facing upside down toward earth.
   2. Blast the sensor with non-static charged air. (ie do not use the Giotto Red Rocket)
      1. Your choices here are:
         1. Optex Hepa Jet II
         2. Visible Dust Zeeion Anti-Static Blower
         3. NRD FireFly Blower (my gear choice)
   3. Return your camera to your workspace with sensor facing up to the sky
      1. Use your sensor light loupe and recheck particles, location, size and type
         1. Anything which moved is a ‘good thing’ and is probably inorganic
         2. Return to 5.2 and loop thru the process to get rid of as much as possible.
      2. At this point you need to remove any remaining particles by targeted cleaning using a static charge.
         1. Be mindful of the reflective quality of the particle. 80% of particles come from metal against metal movement between lenses and body. These particles are very reflective and these microscopic shavings are easy to pick up with the statically charged SensorSweep brush.  Do not sweep out the particles without creating a charge. Thus is not a good practice and may create sensor scratches.
         2. Do this process at a point lower or away from your camera body. (Don’t blow air around the work area of your camera body, it may stir more dust up)
         3. To create the static charge, just aim the tip of the Giotto a few inches from the SensorSweep brush and squeeze the bulb four times or so.
         4. Move the SensorSweep down into the camera and onto the sensor and near the particle location.
         5. With a gentle sweeping pulling motion, move the brush a inch or so foward and then pull up and away and off the sensor
      3. Use your sensor light loupe and re-check for more particles, note their location, size and type.
         1. Anything which has moved is a ‘good thing’ and is probably inorganic.
         2. Anything which has smeared is a ‘more work thing’ and is going to have to be removed via chemical cleaning and swabs.
         3. Return to 5.2 and loop thru the process to remove remaining inorganic particles.
      4. If you have successfully removed particles, then you are finished and can lock down your camera mirror via turning off the camera. Typically this mirror slapping down process seems to loosen particles and therefore plan on having to loop back thru this dust cleaning process again.
      5. It is inevitable that you’ll have another particle on the sensor, but my experience is that 80% of the time it is inorganic and can be blown off using my NRD Fire blower,

The jest of this posting is that when dealing with cleaning your sensor, everything matters, which means something as simple as buying a brush will be the difference between minutes or hours on this important gear maintenance work flow.

The Copper Hill SensorSweep is highly recommend and an essential piece of gear

Equipment Links:

1. Copper hill SensorSweep
2. Giotto Red Rocket Blow
3. Visible Dust Zeeion Anti-Static Blower
4. Visible Dust Quasar Sensor Loupe 7X