Clean me up, Scottie!
Its midnight and you and your family just arrived from your two-week long vacation. Memories are very fresh in your mind: strolls on the beach, immaculate white sand, sunset dinners and pictures you’ve taken with your camera. You grab your DSLR and start to tinker with it when you hear a sickening grinding sound when you turned your focusing ring. This, my friend, is your trust cam screaming to you ”Clean me!” loudly – and you should.
The camera is a tool, a tool that you use to have fun so that you can capture memories that would (hopefully) last you a lifetime. As with all tools that you use the camera gests dirty every time you use it. When it does, you need to clean your camera so it would work well every time you use it. Sure, you can store your camera inside your bag or closet so that you won’t go through the trouble of cleaning it up, but you won’t have many photographs to show-off your shots to friends and family.
You might find this surprising but many of the best photos that you can make could only be done in an environment that can have your equipment dirty or wet. With the proper care after every shoot, your gear may even last you a lifetime.
Camera Body
Well, this is perhaps the easiest piece of your equipment because camera bodies are sealed against dust and moisture. However, grime can accumulate on top of your camera body. Believe it or not, the bacteria on that thick slab of grime on that camera body of yours could very well find its way inside your lens or inside the camera where the mirror is. So, when you’re cleaning your gear, don’t just focus on the lens. The camera body is real simple to clean: take a piece of microfibre cloth, dip it in lukewarm water and wipe your camera body with it. Don’t use any solvent or alcohol on the camera body, especially of you got one of them fancy DSLRs because solvents or alcohol might leave a nasty white haze on the body. If you do need to use a solvent, use an isopropyl alcohol solution where 50% of the solution is ethanol (ethyl alcohol) and 50% is distilled water. If your camera manufacturer recommends a solution that you can use for your camera body, I suggest you get it and use it.
If you just came from a beach resort vacation and there’s sand on your cam’s body, you can remove it by brushing if off with a soft bristled artists brush. Better yet, you can blow away first the loose sand and grime through a quick burst from a can of compressed air. Take care in ensuring that you brush of the sand and dirt in a direction away from your lens. If there are spots on the cam where a quick air blast and soft brush can’t remove, you can try removing using a syringe. Yep – a syringe. You can use the needle tip of the syringe to either blow out or dislodge sand and dirt so you can clean them or you can use the syringe as a sort of micro vacuum where you can suck out the tiniest of sand and dirt.
Contacts
Okay, cleaning contacts is simple. Just go to the drugstore, buy a contact cleaning solution then go to the bathroom… wait….wrong contacts. ‘Sorry ‘bout that. Of course, what we’re talking about here is the flash contacts on your SLR camera and the battery contacts on cameras.
Cleaning the contacts is simple enough to do. You can remove the green and black grime using an ordinary pencil eraser. Once that muck is loose, you can either brush it off or blow it away with your can of compressed air. It would also be good if you periodically spray the contacts with a can of contact cleaner. You can get a can of contact cleaner from any major hardware. Don’t worry about the contact cleaner since these are also used for computers, cellular phones and electronic equipment.
If you cam has removable battery covers and you find the green and black muck sticking on the contacts, you can remove these by carefully pouring a liberal amount of hot water on the contacts. The hot water causes a chemical reaction on the green and black muck that immediately loosens it. You can wipe off any left-over residue and the moisture from the hot water using microfibre cloth.
SLR Mirror
This is the part of your SLR cam that you don’t want to touch and don’t want to clean unless your absolutely know what you’re doing and unless your absolutely have the special cleaning gear that professional technicians use to clean the mirror. Even if you have the best cleaning solution, it’s not recommended that you even think of touching he mirror.
The surface of the SLR mirror has a very sensitive and fragile surface. These are also precision-placed and mounted. Therefore if you touch it even with your lightest touch, there’s a big chance that you would say bye-bye to your SLR mirror after your folly. It’s also not recommended that you use a can of compressed air on the mirror because canned air provides a blast of powerfully pressured air that can really do harm to your SLR mirror.
If you think that the SLR mirror of your camera needs cleaning, bring it to a professional technician. Professional technicians use a cleaning fluid with a special viscosity that is really made for SLR mirrors. If you also would like to have the innards of your camera cleaned, then you can ask the same technician to do it for you.
Lens
If your camera came with a cleaning kit inside the box, then by all means use it. Follow the cleaning instructions by the manufacturer that is found inside your manual. If you don’t have the cleaning kit, then the basic tools you would use for cleaning are these: blower/can of compressed air, a soft artists brush, microfibre cloth and cleaning fluid.
First, you need to dislodge or remove loose dirt from your lens. This is where you need the blower or canned of compressed air. No, not the blower you’re sister uses on her hair but a special blower where you blow out a fine, quick blast of air by pumping air through the blower using a sack. This blower is much like the air-horn that you use on your bicycle. Once the dirt is dislodged or loose enough, brush them off using the soft brush.
To use the cleaning fluid, take your microfibre cloth and pour the cleaning fluid on the cloth or dip the cloth on the fluid. Do not apply or pour the cleaning fluid directly on the lens. Now, wipe the lens using the microfibre cloth in a circular motion. You can also use cotton and ethanol (ethyl alcohol) to clean your lens. If you’re going use ethanol, you need to dilute in 50-parts of distilled water. You can also use lens tissue for cleaning but it’s recommended that you don’t use the same tissue more than once and that you evenly use both sides of the tissue for cleaning. Don’t blow air on your using your breath. Human breath has bacteria and fungus that are bad for your lens. Even if you drink a gallon-full of Listerine, it’s still not recommended to use your breath to blow air on the lens. However, if you don’t have a can of compressed air with you but have a can of soda handy, you can use the fizz (CO2) that comes out of the soda can when you open it to blow away loose dirt and grime.
As for frequency of cleaning, it’s recommended that you do cleaning once every three or four months, even if the lens has not been used. Don’t clean on a weekly or monthly basis because there’s a big chance that you would strip away the special coatings on the lens. Now, if there is still stubborn dirt that can’t be removed, you need to bring it to a technician.
If you’re lens needs to be cleaned, it’s the same for the lens cap. Clean them as you would the camera body.
Camera Bag
Yes, you need to clean your camera bag to since it does get dirty like any kind of bag that you have. If the manufacturer of the camera bag says that it’s washable, then follow manufacturer instructions and wash it but don’t wash it inside a washing machine. If you want to wash your camera bag, had wash it using lukewarm water and using mild detergent. Don’t use strong detergent since it might ruin the material of the bag. Worse, it can leave chemical residue that might find its way inside your camera or your lens. After totally drying your bag, put in a couple of bags of silica gel inside and close the bag.
Tripod
Yep, you also need to clean the tripod. Since the tripod is made of either a light alloy like aluminum, you can clean it using a clean, soft cotton rag dipped in lukewarm water. When moving around, it’s best to keep the tripod inside the protective bag to keep the theads clean and protect them from possible scarpes and damages. You also need to scrape off any dirt that can be found on the shoe of each leg. If you don’t, this could harden and might be a cause for your tripod to slip, and you don’t want it to slip then fall – especially with your P 50,000 camera resting on top of it.
CCD and CMOS Sensors
Unless you absolutely know what you’re doing, then it is not recommend that you disassemble your digital camera to clean the CCD sensor or the CMOS sensor. However, the CCD or CMOS sensor does get dirty over time and like with everything else that gets dirty, it needs to be cleaned. Bring it to a certified technician that has the know-how on cleaning CCD and CMOS sensors. However, if you’re that adventurous and want to do it on your own, or simply get information on how to clean CCD and CMOS sensors, then you can click on any of the following links:
1. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/sensor-cleaning.shtml
2. http://www.bythom.com/cleaning.htm
3. http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/ccd_cleaning
So there you have it – a bit of information that you can chew on so that you can clean your camera gear. We hope that you liked what you read and that it would be useful to you. Just remember: an ounce of prevention is worth more than a ton of cure.
Happy shooting!
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