Nikon manual David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

486 David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

You want a sturdy swab that won’t bend or break so you can apply gentle pressure to the swab as you wipe the sensor surface. Use the swab with methanol (as pure as you can get it, particularly medical grade; other ingredients can leave a residue), or the Eclipse solution also sold by Photographic Solutions. Eclipse is actually quite a bit purer than even medical-grade methanol. A couple drops of solution should be enough, unless you have a spot that’s extremely difficult to remove. In that case, you may need to use extra solution on the swab to help “soak” the dirt off.

You can make your own swabs out of pieces of plastic (some use fast food restaurant knives, with the tip cut at an angle to the proper size) covered with a soft cloth or Pec- Pad, as shown in Figure 14.14. However, if you’ve got the bucks to spend, you can’t go wrong with good-quality commercial sensor cleaning swabs, such as those sold by Photographic Solutions, Inc. (www.photosol.com/swabproduct.htm).

Once you overcome your nervousness at touching your D7000’s sensor, the process is easy. You’ll wipe continuously with the swab in one direction, then flip it over and wipe in the other direction. You need to completely wipe the entire surface; otherwise, you may end up depositing the dust you collect at the far end of your stroke. Wipe; don’t rub.

Figure 14.14

Carefully wrap a Pec-Pad around a plas- tic knife that you’ve trun- cated.