For people who fear sensor cleaning..

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 00:25

So while I have my Canon 350D fully apart I thought I would inform everyone esp the people who are scared to clean the dust off their sensor using manual methods such as pads.

For fear of scratching and cracking their sensor I thought I would show you the full protection of your EOS Sensor + what people seem to choose to ignore, a low pass filter (blocking out infrared light) which is actually the part you clean.

This black bracket holds the low pass filter which you clean.

As you can see from the picture above I took. The image sensor is fixed to its PCB which is actually behind a layer of glass. So at no point can you actually touch the sensor.

In front of this is the low pass filter which stands a fair bit above your sensor which is why sensor dust appears massive. The light hitting this dust speck funnels out enough to make it 20x its real size.

As you can see from the above picture its size is compared to a thick credit card of mine.
Ignore that black strip on the side. Its just Black Silicon Sealant. The size of this piece of glass is 3 credit card sizes thick and I put it past anyone to smash this using a wobbly plastic swab.

While I still advise people to use rocket blowers purely because they are enough when used properly to get the job done. For anyone who wants to touch that piece of glass using a sensor swab you now know exactly how thick these things are and are very durable.

I hope this helps people.

Johnny

Russinating · 10 Jul 2007 at 00:39

If I did that in my room I'd let more dust in than there was in the first place

. Nice to know though, thanks

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 00:45

rghjones said:
If I did that in my room I'd let more dust in than there was in the first place . Nice to know though, thanks

hense why

Steamed my room down to cut down the risk of dust.

ChroniC · 10 Jul 2007 at 02:08

why did you have it apart, and have you put it back together sucessfully?

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 02:24

ChroniC said:
why did you have it apart, and have you put it back together sucessfully?

I've cut out the low pass filter and replaced it with a APS-C sized R72 for high speed infrared photography.

Its going back together tomorrow morning once the sealant on the new filter is set.

Spie · 10 Jul 2007 at 09:54

Blimey. You're brave. Can I borrow yours to practice on?

Mohain · 10 Jul 2007 at 10:24

Nice work F11. I'm gonna do this one day, after I've got a flash, 70-200, B+W grads, A3+ printer, calibration device .............

nolimit · 10 Jul 2007 at 10:35

hmm interesting.

I have a dead Nikon D70 sitting here, might open up to see whats inside.

Where can you get that steamer?

Messiah Khan · 10 Jul 2007 at 10:39

Finally got round to doing it then Fstop11. I know you've been planning to do it for a while. The important question though.. have you modified the 350D badge on the front to make it a 350Di?

Im looking forward to seeing the results. Will be nice to see IR shots without motion blur trees etc.

Edit; Woo, over 6000 posts. *gets back to work and stops spamming forums*

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 11:06

Spie said:
Blimey. You're brave. Can I borrow yours to practice on?

When its back together and I turn it on I will give it you if it either
1. shows me smoke.
2. just does not turn on.

Not looking forward to taking a red hot soldering iron to it again though. That was the scariest part.

Mohain said:
Nice work F11. I'm gonna do this one day, after I've got a flash, 70-200, B+W grads, A3+ printer, calibration device .............

Thank you Mohain.

nolimit said:
hmm interesting.

I have a dead Nikon D70 sitting here, might open up to see whats inside.

Where can you get that steamer?

Im not sure where its from. Its my parents and I borrowed it.

messiah khan said:
Finally got round to doing it then Fstop11. I know you've been planning to do it for a while. The important question though.. have you modified the 350D badge on the front to make it a 350Di? Im looking forward to seeing the results. Will be nice to see IR shots without motion blur trees etc.

Edit; Woo, over 6000 posts. *gets back to work and stops spamming forums*

Yeah I have been banging on about it for some time now. I haven't modified the badge he he but I did make a modified one in Photoshop

divine` · 10 Jul 2007 at 11:46

messiah khan said:
Will be nice to see IR shots without motion blur trees etc.

Check out this thread on TPF and more specifically this post to see some IR photos 'without the blur'

Hoodi posts as hoodmeister here

edit - I would have course, look less stupid, if I had read through that thread and noticed you had actually posted in it. Nevermind

Messiah Khan · 10 Jul 2007 at 11:49

divine_madness said:
Check out this thread on TPF and more specifically this post to see some IR photos 'without the blur'

Hoodi posts as hoodmeister here

edit - I would have course, look less stupid, if I had read through that thread and noticed you had actually posted in it. Nevermind

Yeah, ive seen that thread before. It certainly is nice to see crisp and sharp IR shots.

Edit; In response to your edit...

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 12:50

Yeah hoodi converted his old D70. He was telling me that he needs to open it up again to replace the filter with a non scratched one. He used gels for his conversation which I thought was genius.

My Ir filter is a 1.6x sensor sized R72. Same density and thickness too.

Anyway. I have just successfully finished mine now.

Helium_Junkie · 10 Jul 2007 at 12:59

You're a brave man, good for you

Hope it all holds together!

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 13:02

Helium_Junkie said:
You're a brave man, good for you Hope it all holds together!

You can imagine a duck taped up pirate ship can't you.

So far results are pleasing. Im just about to go out for an hour to take some samples. Nothing professional but just something to justify the procedure

ISO100 : F4.5 : 50mm : 1/800th

Phate · 10 Jul 2007 at 14:55

Fantastic work

- Would love to do this

hoodmeister · 10 Jul 2007 at 14:59

Oh god damn you, you're just reminding me that I still haven't finished working on mine!

Congrats on the succesful op though

SidewinderINC · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:18

so let me get this right, the standard filter blocks a large amount of IR so you need longer shutter times to get the same amount through?
so you've replaced it with one that doesnt cut as much so you can use fast shutter times and take handheld IR shots?

just trying to understand it, as i dont really get IR photography but i love the look of it

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:18

SidewinderINC said:
so let me get this right, the standard filter blocks a large amount of IR so you need longer shutter times to get the same amount through?
so you've replaced it with one that doesnt cut as much so you can use fast shutter times and take handheld IR shots?

just trying to understand it, as i dont really get IR photography but i love the look of it

All sensors are protected by a low pass filter to block out infrared light (its radiation and affects the final image so these filters block it out as out eyes can not see infrared but camera can)
I cut mine out and replaced it with a custom one I bought which does the complete reverse of the standard ones.

Mine only allows passage of infrared light and completely repels the light we see with our eyes.

Phate · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:20

SidewinderINC said:
so let me get this right, the standard filter blocks a large amount of IR so you need longer shutter times to get the same amount through?
so you've replaced it with one that doesnt cut as much so you can use fast shutter times and take handheld IR shots?

just trying to understand it, as i dont really get IR photography but i love the look of it

The way I see it is that a normal filter blocks all light and lets IR light in, and you need longer exposure times to allow the sensor to see all the light.

Now the full amount of light is hitting the sensor directly and only IR light is being shown, allowing for the normal "snap-shot" style instead of long exposures.

I could be wrong

For people who fear sensor cleaning..

Godfather