Today's walk report: 060313

Riding a bummer day...

I've been so looking forward to this highly overpriced "sensor cleaning kit" which wasn't due to arrive until Wednesday the 5th, two days from today. It could have waited too, at least I would have had my hopes up for two more days that this would be the solution to my camera problems. It was not. The story about the camera acting up starts here. I've pretty much determined now that lubricants inside the camera, probably those discussed here inside the mirror box, were released sometime during the shutter error problem the camera was having. I was shooting through the viewfinder, I wasn't seeing the error which was displayed on the LCD, I can only imagine that exacerbating potential problems by continuing to shoot. What I think should probably happen is the camera should shut down and not allow you to do that. At least have the error show somehow in the viewfinder. Although the splat itself is clearly visible from one image to the next. You can see quite clearly in two images taken just seconds apart exactly then the problem occurred.

Whatever it is that came in contact with my sensor it happened while shooting. When I first saw it the sensor looked like it had a spatter of some sort covering about 1/3 of the entire sensor. This splatter did not clean up well. The way it appears now is that whatever the splatter was it has damaged the UV coating on the low pass filter which is glass overing the actual sensor. It's better than it was but it's certainly not acceptable. By the way, somebody with some ethics and who has some other product line please come out with a reasonably priced sensor cleaning kit. This f'n thing was $31.45 delivered and it's a joke. They're all like that.

To give you an idea of what this looks like here's AFTER using all 3 of those miserable little swabs. I did a tonal adjustment in Photoshop so you can better see all of the filth. If you only have dust on your sensor, which is the only thing you should have if you take prudent care of your camera, just use a squeeze blower and get it out. You shouldn't need some ripoff, poorly packaged swabs, a soft brush you can probably get at an art store for a few bucks and some tiny bottle of methanol.

As far as the walk goes. It was a typical Monday get out and get it done sort of walk. I had ideas about better cleaning the sensor glass and was in hurry to get home and try that. I can't say it's much better though.

It is possible to shoot around the problem. It depends on the subject, lens, DOF, focal length, aperture, etc., but who wants to take pictures with that sort of handicap? A sunset or other wide scenic would be  a disaster, so would most portraits. It REALLY sucks and I'm not quite sure what I should do.

This was right after the picture above of the wall. Bachelor Button (Centaurea cyanus), just showed up today. It doesn't make me happy though.