On Sunday a week ago it was foggy and wet, with the skyline of Chicago disappearing and reappearing as the weather changed. This was taken with an i-Phone, as my Panasonic Lumix is getting cleaned in the shop (better to pay $50 to fix a dusty sensor than $350 for a new camera). I have to get the thing cleaned about once a year, but it’s worth it.
Chicago: storm
June 22, 2015 • 6:22 am
Jerry, Do you get the sensor cleaned when dust shows up or are you doing a preventative maintenance schedule? 🙂
Nice photo!
Hopefully, when the time comes to put the Panasonic out to pasture, the point-and-shoot cameras will have gotten the anti-dust technology of DSLRs. Despite the fact that you expose the sensor and the chamber to dust every time you change a lens, modern ones basically don’t collect dust in the first place.
b&
Ben, I hadn’t heard much about this. Could you explain further? I haven’t shopped for a camera body since about 2011. (Latest in a Pentax K-5.)
Cheers,
Canon, at least, and I’m sure Nikon and others, have put a lot of work into keeping sensors clean. There’re special anti-static coatings on the sensors, dust traps inside the mirror box, ultrasonic vibrators to knock dust loose, routines to detect and map out dust, and more.
There’s no expense spared on the top-of-the-line models — anything from Canon with a single numeric digit in the model number. I don’t pay much attention to the rest of their DSLRs, but I’d expect all of them to get whatever the state of the art is at the time the camera is designed.
(The state of the art changes with time, of course. The original consumer Canon DSLR, the Digital Rebel 300D, was notorious for being a dust magnet. The 5D, Canon’s first not-insanely-priced full-frame DSLR, was marginally but barely better. But by the 5D Mark II, dust wasn’t something people spent much time dealing with, and it’s pretty much a non-issue for all cameras after that. Few people will notice dust in the first place, and few of those will need anything other than a bulb blower to clean the sensor.)
…and how much of that makes its way into point-and-shoot cameras, or that other manufacturers have developed and / or adopted, and so on, I’ve no clue….
b&
Thanks Ben. My K-5 does the vibro-clean thing. And it doesn’t seem to attract much dust — it’s not been a real issue for me.
Dust got much less for me when I found two lenses that stay on my two bodies almost all the time: Pentax 17-70 f/4, Sigma 10-20 f/5.6 (always set at 10mm — my next lens purchase will probably be a Samyang 10mm f/2.8 (at 10mm, who needs to focus anyways?!). I’ve been waiting for a super-wide prime that fits Pentax. This one looks very good.)
If you haven’t yet had a problem with dust, you’re not going to unless, perhaps, you start changing lenses at the rodeo or the like.
Some of those cheap manual focus third party lenses have good reputations and some…don’t. Do your homework and you should find something you’ll be quite happy with.
b&
I have read a very thorough review of the lens, including many images at 100% crop at various apertures. It seems very solid for IQ.
The only issue is ensuring you get a “good copy”. I’ve had to return a couple of Pentax lenses too, before getting a “good copy”.
A friend who’s a real pixel-peeper, has the Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 on his FF Canon and loves it. I may get one of those some day as well.
I don’t mind manual focus in many instances. Luckily for my over-50 eyes, my cameras have built-in adjustable diopters on the view finders (what a great (if old) idea!).
My “standard lens” used to be a 20mm (f/4 at first and then f/2.8*)
I am a wide-angle guy. I love 10mm on my APS-C sensor. It’s like having a 15mm (equiv.).
A good friend has the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8, which is a really splendid lens.
(* You need f/2.8 to do star trails with Kodachrome 64.)
Yeah, coincidentally it was a piece of schmutz that messed up my 5D MKIII focusing. I got that all fixed up and felt all superior.
Mirrorless cameras are even more exposed to dirt too (not that my 5D is mirrorless) because they have nothing in front of the sensor when you change the lenses. However, I have found that all my cameras, despite my lens changes, seem pretty clean.
Is your camera still a Lumix ZS15? I’m curious because I have owned several of the ZS series (called TZ here in the UK) and have never noticed any dust on the sensor. Is your neighborhood very dusty?
It’s from all the vampires Jerry has to kill during the night – oh you didn’t know that he’s a vampire slayer by night? 😉
Yes, (I remember from a previous post of Jerry’s) is is that model or a very similar model — with the super-zoom lens.
The bellows effect of the super-zoom lens as is extends makes it hard to preclude dust from being sucked in as the lens extends.
It is possible that the UK version has additional dust-protection features/seals.
That’s the sort of attitude that will make (commission-paid) camera salespeople hate you. But apart from that surviveable downside, it’s a good attitude to have. Despite being in the habit of learning and remembering the manual whenever I get new toys/ tools like a camera, I don’t do it too often because it does take time to memorise the behaviour of the machine and to actually remember to do [whatever]. Back in the days of manual stop down, I got into the habit of using my little finger to operate the stop ring as I was bringing the camera to my face, but as cameras have got more complex (and more capable) there is so much more to remember. My current bugbear is remembering to turn the GPS logging on when I walk out of a building (and off when I walk back indoors), which wasn’t a problem I had to deal with when I learned photography with a light meter.
I have trouble remembering to activate my GPS as well!
If only I could find the switch!
(Sorry – one of my worst geolocated jokes ever.)
I’m still hitting the wi-fi button on my TZ70 when I try to review a picture.
I think that camera has WiFi, but with a couple of hundred photos a day – say a couple of gigabytes, I think pulling the card and putting it into the computer is going to win.