How to CLEAN your CAMERA SENSOR SAFELY | the easy way

the best tool i ever found for sensor cleaning was the eyelead sensor stick, they seem quite hard to get hold of these days, when I was pro shooting on my 1dx and 5dmkiii in many rough environments i swore by my sensor stick in my bag. expose the sensor dab the dust off, and away you go. i now generally just rocket blower or use the sensor swabs as you did there. don't think either are as effective as the sensor stick though wish you could still get hold of them :(

This helped me a lot. Thanks so much!

thought the dude said "sensor swap" instead of "sensor swab" and had a mini panic attack

Hi. Thanks for the video. Question: when I use à liquid solution for cleaning the sensor, I have to turn off the camera before cleaning?

i live in a dust house. i dont know a safe place to go besides the bathroom and im still scared to open and clean my camera there. what do yall recommend?

Very helpful information here. Thanks for posting.

Thoughts on using an IR flashlight (265-295nm) to better illuminate spots given how well most organics show up under IR?

I've had good experience on Amazon overall, but far too many fakes from unscrupulous sellers hacking the platform. I'd honestly suggest that for this sort of stuff people stick to B&H, Adorama, and or their local reputable camera store (be it a brick and mortar or local online retailer in their country).

I usea Lens Pen set to clean my Sony A 7 works fine wit no expensive shop charges or expensive wet cleaning kits idean my camera bag when I am out on a shoot /holiday - that is it

Thanks, Nigel, I have a grey dot in my photos and was told it was probably on my sensor. Now I have the knowledge to purchase what I need to clean the sensor. Thanks for the tip. I've never cleaned it for years and just started using the camera again.

Nigel, i truly appreciate you haven taken some time to make this video. It is an amazing method to spot sensor dirt. Thanks (Y)

Nice video Nigel, I was a Optical Technician for 50 years, working on high spec optics, just another thing to add is never talk over optics, as you talk you are spitting extremely tiny particals of saliva, which is really difficult to remove once dry, we always wear a face mask while cleaning

Wow, it really works! Have just done this here according to your steps. Lots of dust spots here. Thank you so much.

Hi Nigel

I wanna ask you something. Can I use the glass cleaning liquid? You know what I mean? The liquid in the pharmacy for eyeglasses. I have swabs but no liquid and there is no shop here(Baku, Azerbaijan) to buy.

Btw, I have D200 that has old CCD sensor.

Hi Nigel, so glad you did a video on how to safely clean your camera sensor. I've recently purchased a Nikon D800 from mpb and my first test shots show halo like marks on the images. These look similar to the one you found on your sensor shown in your video. I've gone ahead and ordered a swab cleaning kit. I'll watch your video once more before I do the sensor cleaning.

oh man thak you, needed to clean my D750 and my D3200 because i had dust ruining my astrophotography and i only found out there was dust when i had the aperture at f22, always felt nervous about physically wet cleaning my sensor for the first time but i bought a pack of those disposable brushes with tubes of liquid and watching your video gave me the comfort to do it, i tested on the D3200 first of course since the D750 is my main camera and the results were great so i did it with my 750 and now its like new.

What if we already use air canister and have now a blue thing on the sensor ?? It's for a friend

This was helpful, thanks :)

Can I use spray for monitor cleaning?

Such a helpful video! Thank you!!

I usually try to change lenses while pointing the camera downwards to keep floating dust from getting in.

I use an old full sensor swab and wrap around it a Zeiss Lens cleaning wipe......It works wonders and swabs are made for sensitive glass that scratches easily ..... It works !!!!!

So, if I want to make current dust less noticeable in a pinch, I just need to do the opposite of the diagnostic. Shoot at 6400 ISO with the aperture as open as possible and a very fast shutter to compensate and keep the blacks true.

Thanks for this Nigel. I just used the Sensor brush you recommended. It's awesome! works really well.

Thanks Nigel. Much better than most other vids I've seen on the subject. And no irritating 'comedy' stunts wasting our lives too.

Thanks for the video and giving me the confidence to do this myself. I bought the kit needed, with 12 swabs for the price of one clean at my local camera shop.
My sensor was reasonably dirty, but once round with this process and it was down to one spot right on the edge. Happy with that.

Thanks Nigel, im going to give it a go (Using the kit from your links!)

The stuff in the link it's not the same you are using in the video. That one from the video Is from Amazon, the linked one nope

thank you. this video made me understand that you pretty much don't need to clean your sensor in most situations, barring some extremes such taking a handfull of dust/sand and spilling it on your sensor

ordered a wet cleaning kit a week ago because using the brush's some how made it worse, just use the wet kit on my M50 and the one massive spot is finally gone and even the tiny micro ones are gone Thanks!, Pro Tip; Lightroom 2023 has the same visualize spots in the healing tool, LR Classic was a pain to to use and so slow.

ah aren't you supposed to turn the brush 180 for the stroke backwards.

take off lens, put camera in cleaning mode and clean it. it is not made out of honey nothing will happen if you have brain

Man, Thanx a lot )))

Nice Chanel, wish to differ though. Brushes and blowers, just leave the dust inside the camera. Earth the body and yourself, then vacuum the dust without touching the sensor, clean the back of lenses, body and end caps as well. This is how we do it in a film production environment and in service environments.

would that liquid be isopropyl alcohol?

Obnoxious ads. I'll watch the other videos on this subject

Hi Nigel, there is one spot I can't seem to be able to get rid of, no matter how many times I clean the sensor. I don't see it on the sensor either. It's probably not a dead pixel as it looks like a smudge and not a defined square, but I was wondering - when I am looking at the sensor, where should I be searching for that spot? Does the sensor see the same way as the EVF or is it upside down? Would be interesting to know.
And thanks for this video, it is very educative and detailed. It helped me a lot!

to the overwhelming positive comments let me set something straight for new photographers. I just went through fucking 11 swabs trying to clean my sensor to absolute perfection. $35 worth... It is heavily dependent on skill and technique. First timers beware and get ready to waste a f ton of money trying to get your sensor clean. i could not achieve over 95% clean...good luck.

Would I be able to do this with Adobe Photoshop Elements 15?
Thank you!

The only way to safely clean your sensor is take it to a recognised dealer, I didn't spend $2500 to buy a $20 cleaning kit and follow your tutorial on how to ruin my sensor and invalidate my warranty, I'm not going to begrudge an expert $70 to clean my sensor professionally and safely to use your DIY approach

OML, my used camera had a whole finger smudge on the sensor!!! Can't wait for my cleaning gear to arrive, that's crazy that a whole finger print got on the sensor, whoever used this camera last obviously didn't care to clean their sensor, that or the pawnshop touched the sensor for no reason. Good thing I knew to check the sensor before my return window. I might have to do like 3 passes with the swab lol.

Update, 1 swab and blower did the job. Only 1 pass was enough to get rid of the pesky finger smudge. I can finally take longer exposures without having to worry about annoying sensor smudges showing up. 🙂

I'm so glad i kept the manual for my d850. This video was helpful.

When you do the second wet swab, do you use the same one from the first swab (just add a bit more fluid), or use a new swab? Thanks.

Superb, thanks for this

hi, is this applicable for light fingerprint smudge on the sensor?

to avoid confusion of "this image is inverted", just flip the image vertically...

I wish every camera had sensor dust protection shutter cover like A7 IV

Having just watched your video. I have successfully cleaned the sensor on my Nikon D500. I am happy that I have removed 90% of the offending dust and grease. I took a few photos outside and am very satisfied with the results. However, I did find that if I took the lens off and looked through the viewfinder I could still see a lot of dust. This was clearly not on the sensor and probably would never turn up on any image. However just seeing it was still annoying. So I decided to clean the ground glass screen . Bingo all gone.

Thank you! I was so nervous about touching the sensor and making it worse but these tips really helped! My photoshop hairs out of photos are done for now. Much appreciated x