Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Much as I envy the M8/M9 users, these recent cleaning tales make me more pleased every day that I am using a couple of Oly E-thingies. I am happy to keep things very simple. Jim Nichols Tullahoma, TN USA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan Wajsman" <photo at frozenlight.eu> To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:46 PM Subject: Re: [Leica] Sensor cleaning revisited > Wow, this sounds scary Geoff. I bet several doses of "blood pressure > medication" were needed during and after this process. > > Because of tales like this, I have a simple rule: never put any liquid on > the sensor, never touch it with anything wet. I use Sensor Scope. The kit > does contain liquid and swabs but I have never used them; the little > vacuum cleaner has until now been adequate on my M8 and before that on my > Canon cameras. Of course, with Olympus I did not need any sensor cleaning > thanks to the built-in dust removal system. I wish Leica had the same > thing. > > Cheers, > Nathan > > Nathan Wajsman > Alicante, Spain > http://www.frozenlight.eu > http://www.greatpix.eu > http://www.nathanfoto.com > > Books: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=wajsman&x=0&y=0 > PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws > Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog > > > > > > > On Mar 3, 2010, at 3:07 AM, Geoff Hopkinson wrote: > >> I had a recent exchnge on and off list regarding cleaning the M9 sensor. >> When I just cleaned mine ( which has not had heavy use), I was dismayed >> to >> find that I had persistent streaks, some of which looked alarmingly like >> fine scratches. >> I was confident that I had been careful. I used the Arctic butterfly >> brush >> first to remove any loose dust and then did a careful wet pass with >> Visible >> Dust Plus. I only had 1.3x size swabs. >> The streaks remained after 3 separate cleaning cycles with new swabs each >> time. >> I repeated this all with the Dust Aid kit which uses swabs that you need >> to >> manually wind around the spatula and their fluid. Same result. My Leica >> dealer repeated this, same result. >> We could not budge the easily visible streaks although they were >> completely >> undetectable on test images at high magnification on a monitor. >> >> Today I repeated the dry clean folowed by a wet clean with the Eclipse >> type >> 3 (size) swab and their fluid. They no longer consider the E2 fluid >> necessary for tin oxide sensors and recommend their standard fluid for >> every >> sensor. >> A single pass in each direction completely removed every trace of the >> streaks and I am a happy camper. I believe that the streaks I had were >> either traces of oil, possibly from the swab touching the surrounds of >> the >> sensor (shutter lubricant??), drying marks from the fluids used (qty?) or >> a >> combination of both. >> >> I note that the Eclipse fluid contains methanol. >> Visible Dust fluid does not and they state that methanol can damage the >> seal >> of the covering bonded to the sensor. >> Leica recommends isopropyl alcohol. >> In any event I wanted to report my experiences. I'm sure that others will >> have had different experiences and views. Incidentally the Eclipse swabs >> actually cost even more here than the Visible Dust products so that >> should >> please those who considered I was skimping by trying the Dust aid swabs >> when >> my Visible Dust ones (M8 size) ran out! >> >> Cheers >> Geoff >> http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >