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Sensor Cleaning

Duncan McMillan — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:04:15 +0000

Despite having become quite attached to the old Canon EOS 300D, times move on and I have finally replaced it with the 400D. The fact that Leigh from the band was eager to take the 300D off my hands smoothed the upgrade path considerably. However, as I was selling it to a mate I felt that I ought to do something about the specks of dirt that had accumulated on the sensor (or more accurately, on the infra-red filter that sits in front of the sensor in the camera).

The circular spots on the image that are a result of these miniscule bits of sensor dust have gradually become more noticeable over the last couple of months, to the point where they were really quite annoying. They often required retouching in Photoshop, but the prospect of damaging the delicate sensor with a cotton bud put me off taking the plunge and cleaning the thing. As it happens I needn’t have worried.

After a spot of Googling, the concensus seemed to be that the Photographic Solutions cleaning kit was the best bet. And I can heartily recommend them. They offer three starter kits for different sizes of sensor – number 2 does the EOS series, and I picked one up from local dealer Hilton Photographic for £22.95. It took a couple of swabs to remove all the dirt, but the process was painless.

Although the sensor inside the camera is undoubtedly very delicate, the greatest risk is that the shutter curtains get damaged if they close while the swab is inserted in the camera body. The actual process of swabbing the sensor is relatively straightforward and risk free if the instructions that came with the cleaning kit are followed.

Of course if you do happen to mash up your sensor as a result of reading this post, then I’m afraid I can’t be held responsible. But it really is a breeze.

Flickr Comments

Duncan McMillan — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:57:48 +0000

I just installed Donncha O Caoimh’s “Flickr Comment Importer” plug in for WordPress. If you’re using Flickr to host images for your WordPress blog, then this plug-in imports recent comments from your photostream using Flickr’s RSS feed. The plug-in has a few limitations but works well and is easy to set up. You can read about it and download it from Donncha’s photoblog InPhotos here.

Donncha O Caoimh is one of the developers who worked on WordPress. InPhotos was the first photoblog I subscribed to when I rediscovered photography last year.

[Edit]

I have turned off comments on this post as it has been attracting a massive number of spam comments for some reason.

Hello World!

Duncan McMillan — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

So finally my blog is live! It’s only taken me a year or so and few false starts to get this far. Installing WordPress was the easy bit, and took just a few minutes. Getting it to look right and tinkering with the configuration is what takes the time.

So that’s it. All I need to do now is fill it with words and pictures. Watch this space…