Here’s a question I get asked about 15 times a week: “How can I get the dust out of my lens?” The right answer is you don’t. All lenses have dust in them and it doesn’t affect the images at all 99% of the time. Even if you clean it all out, it will be back after you use the lens a few times.
There are occasionally times that large dust specs very near the rear element are visible in an image, though. There also is the very real issue of resale value; a dusty lens tends to bring a lower price than one without much dust. The right answer in these cases is “send it in for factory service, they’ll disassemble it and clean it.” Doing it yourself is risky. Read more…
Photographer Kyle Clements‘ time-lapse showing specks accumulating on the Nikon D600 over the first 1000 shots has been seen by nearly 200,000 people around the web in less than a week. Through the exposure his experiment has gotten, Clements received a good deal of feedback and suggestions regarding further experiments and what the specks might be. He has since done two new time-lapse experiments that sheds a little more light on the issue. Read more…
It has been widely reported that the new Nikon D600 full-frame DSLR suffers from a higher-than-normal amount of dark spots appearing on the sensor. Yesterday we shared one photographer’s time-lapse video that demonstrates that the issue occurs right out of the box without any lens swaps.
Photographer Daniel Gaworski has been experiencing the same problem, and decided to take a closer look at his D600. He discovered that his camera’s shutter curtain contains scratch marks on the bottom flap (see above), particularly in one corner of the camera. Read more…
Back in October, we wrote that the Nikon D600 suffers from excessive sensor dust in the upper left hand corner of the frame — something many owners have been reporting and a flaw confirmed by review sites such as DPReview. Toronto-based artist Kyle Clements wanted to test this himself, so he bought a new D600, pointed it at a white piece of paper, shot 1000 frames, and created the time-lapse video above. Read more…
We tend not to get too excited about sensor dust problems at LensRentals; we clean sensors on every camera after every rental, so it’s just routine. When we started carrying the Nikon D600, they all arrived with a fair amount of dust, but that’s pretty routine, too. Manufacturing and shipping can be a dusty experience. Read more…
As behind-the-scenes videos go, this one is pretty short, but it still offers an interesting look at how photographer Thomas David put together his popular Dust and Dance photo shoot. Obviously there was some post processing involved to go from initial image to final product, but it’s always great to see a talented photographer put a novel idea into action.
A Nikon patent published today details a new dust reduction feature that might make its way into future Nikon DSLRs. The basic idea is the introduction of a hole at the bottom of the camera’s mirrorbox that is designed to catch dust when the mirror swings up. Nikon claims that the feature reduces dust found on the sensor by 50% after 10,000 actuations.
This photograph was taken by a lens with some “obstruction” on the front element. Aside from the blurry patch of nastiness in the bottom portion of the frame, the rest of the image looks pretty decent. What do you think the “obstruction” is? A little dirt? A smudge where the photographer accidentally touched the front element? A scratch? The answer is a little closer to a scratch than a smudge… Click here to see the answer
