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From my “Real Men Don’t Ask For Directions” file, please read the camera manual first. Contrary to the opinion of some photo equipment people I have spoken with; switching the camera to the sensor-cleaning mode, does not accomplish the cleaning operation automatically! (With the exception of the Olympus E-1) This is an important manually accomplished digital photo equipment step and a delicate procedure. Second, obtain the following products to accomplish the job. A. a bottle of Eclipse optic cleaning solution. B. a packet of Eclipse sensor cleaning swabs, which are available in three sizes to photo equipment fit the sensor size of your need. Be careful NOT to remove the polyethylene dust cover from the swab until the last second before use. C. a Kinetronics Speckgrabber pro kit (which contains three speck grabbers, a digital photo equipment handle, grabber cleaning solution and cleaner cloth). Third, in a clean and dust free environment, connect up the camera to the AC power unit. The continuous AC power is to prevent shutter blade damage by a premature digital photo equipment shutter closing due to battery failure. Unofficially, I have heard from a Canon technical representative that in the field only a fully charged battery will do in replacement of AC photo finishing power (so on a digital photo equipment river trip you may have to carry three or four fully charged batteries to ensure a spare for cleaning). A blown shutter is interesting to photo equipment see, but much too expensive to replace. Fourth, wipe the camera clean with a dust free cloth and follow your camera’s instructions for opening the shutter and exposing the sensor for cleaning. photo equipment Fifth, clean the sensor. Note: Do not use any sort of "canned air" for this. digital Canned air is too powerful and the types that are liquid driven will "spit" liquid trapped in the gas stream on to the sensor and photo equipment if that happens you can wave bye-bye to your sensor. They may also freeze the sensor, which again will result in damage. Moving forward, if there photo finishing are particles large enough to see with the unaided eye, use a speckgrabber to remove them first. Then unwrap a swab and apply several drops of the cleaning solution, followed by digital gently wiping the swab photo equipment across the sensor from left to right. Use a speckgrabber to pick up all debris along the right side of the sensor (the swept to side). Apply more solution to the second side of the same swab and wipe in the same direction as before, from left to right to remove any residual from the grabber and dispose of swab. digital photo equipment Do Not be tempted to conserve by reusing a potentially scratchy or dirty swab. Do Not go back and forth across the sensor and chance redistributing particles back onto the sensor. digital Check visually for debris. Repeat if necessary. digital photo equipment If the sensor looks clean, close the shutter and proceed with the quick test that follows.Actually five brushes in all, each Sensor Brush has a different-width tip, from 8mm to 24mm. Each size is composed of an unpainted wooden handle with burnished logo (to ensure no p aint flecks drop into the mirror box during cleaning), aluminum ferrule (the part that photo finishing holds the brush strands in place) in silver or gold colour and an ultra-thin, photo equipment tapered-fibre, non-scratching brush. Using the brush is simple: direct the narrow, straw-like nozzle of a can of compressed air at the brush end and blow out the brush fibres for 5-10 seconds or so. This both cleans out trapped particles and positively charges the brush so digital that it’s better able to lift up dust and other photo equipment guck from the sensor cover glass. Then, sweep gently across the sensor cover glass 1 time, using a continuous motion with lots of wrist action. Clean and charge the brush again with compressed air, digital photo equipment then repeat the procedure, sweeping horizontally across the long dimension of the sensor each time. Depending on the size of the sensor, the brush being used and how much detritus you’re digital trying to remove, all but the most stubborn guck will be pulled up into the fibres of the brush after a small number of passes.I used Sensor Swabs – a highly reputable CCD cleaning tool, and Eclipse Optic Cleaning fluid. The Swabs are like jumbo q-tips on steroids! There is also specific model of swabs for Nikons. Make photo equipment sure photo finishing you get digital this size Type 2 – they have been designed to fit exactly in the sensor c digital hamber, so you don’t need to make multiple passes accross the sensitive sensor surface (saying that is more difficult then photo equipment the cleaining itself!) I’m in Canada and when I searched on-line for suppliers photo equipment most US companies won’t ship the fluid out of the country, so you should look locally for suppliers. I got my stuff at Technicare.They don’t have a digital very helpful Web site but you can call and find out if the products are in stock. The staff are amazing! AND they serve all of Western Canada. Do your Nikon D70 a big favor Keep it away from the elements as much as you can. The fewer photo finishing times you subject your Nikon to CCD cleaning the better. Use a high quality gadget bag for lugging your gear, and if you're only taking your camera, keep it protected in a well designed case. And now the Mandatory Disclaimer: I have to repeat photo equipment that Nikon doesn’t recommend North Americans and probably Europeans do this procedure. Only in Japan is it recommended! So clean at your own risk. Despite the simplicity of the Nikon CCD cleaning process, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong. If the dirt is really bad or you just don't want to take photo equipment the risk, you can send your D70 to Nikon for service. They'll clean it and make sure it gets back to normal. It's an inescapable fact of life that dust will eventually photo equipment plague your digital images .. and life's just too short to fritter it away cloning out dust spots from your images. It's much easier, (though more nerve-wracking), to photo equipment clean the digital sensor of your camera. You have two choices .. Using the Mirror Lock-Up option in the Set-Up Menu, but for this you would need one of the Nikon AC Adapters for your camera, photo finishing such as the Nikon EH-5 AC Adapter for the D100. This costs you extra money, and you also risk the mirror and shutter coming down while you're cleaning the CCD should there be a power interruption. (Unless you invest in a Uninterruptible Power Supply.) I had an unfortunate event where for some reason the shutter of my one D100 body closed on the PecPad I was using to clean the CCD with, photo equipment and the shutter curtain popped out of its rail. I managed to flex it back in again and fortunately the shutter curtain was undamaged and had no kinks in it. That D100 has since worked without a problem for the past year .. but this is the reason I sold my EH-5 adapter, and settled for the following method of cleaning my CCD .. You can set your camera to Manual mode and to a shutter speed of 30 seconds, and then be very careful that you take much less than 30 seconds at a time while photo finishing cleaning your CCD. If not, then the mirror and shutter curtain is going to come down on your photo equipment sensor swabs. This option isn't ideal either - you need to be very careful and clean your CCD with a series of actions where you trip the shutter and proceed to clean the CCD in much less than 30 seconds, and repeat this until you're done. Alternately, you can set your camera to Bulb and lock photo equipment the shutter with a remote release. This will give you all the time you need to clean your CCD, unless there is a glitch and the electronic release malfunctions or the mechanical release slips .. it might be a costly way photo finishing of doing it. What I use to clean my CCD .. I use CO2 gas cannisters from American Recorder Technologies to blow dust off my CCD. The CO2 cannisters supposedly don't contain any propellant or impurities that could make marks on my CCD, but I've had problems with some kind of oily (?) residue being photo equipment sprayed onto my lenses or CCD when I use these cannisters at full blast when they're still full. So be advised to be careful anyway. For stubborn dust spots that won't come off with a gentle blast of air, I also use Eclipse Cleaning Kit, which contains cleaning fluid and Pec Pads. photo equipment This is manufactured by Photographic Solutions, which also makes Sensor Swabs. The swabs and pads are non-abrasive photo finishing and lint-free. I have tried a Spec Grabber tool, but only ended up leaving streaks on my CCD, which I then had to carefully get rid of with the Eclipse Cleaning Kit.