schef

I found a solution to my problem after I last posted in this topic. As I said before, I was considering a swab method to clean it as well as compressed air. I since then came up with another alternative.

I sent my 10D off to Canon a couple months back to clean the sensor for me because I was frankly scared to touch the thing. I waited about 2 weeks and it finally returned back to me. I quickly opened the box, put a card and battery in, slapped on a lens and was poised to see how the geniuses at Canon spiffed up my camera. What I saw when I looked at the images was not nearly what I had expected. The dust specs that I had seen prior to sending the camera off had only been placed into different spots on the sensor. Luckily I had partially expected this after talking to numerous individuals who have sent their cams off to Canon for cleaning. I had in turn purchased a SpecGrabber (mentioned above). After 10 minutes with the specgrabber, I did what Canon was not able to do in 4 days. I would highly recommend the grabber to anyone interested in a fast and nearly foolproof way of sensor cleaning.

I did not go with the compressed air method because I personally believe that the dust only finds its way into crevices rather than the sensor filter. This suspicion was confirmed after speaking to people who have been bitten by compressed air. The most common issue with compressed air is that it can blow specs behind the AA filter at which point the only way to remove it is to remove the filter and clean the surface of the CMOS sensor by hand. Needless to say, NOT a job for an end user.

While oil smear is a possibility with the specgrabber, I take every precaution to not have this happen. I use resin-ess latez gloves when cleaning the sensor in addition to never letting the grabber touch anything but the AA filter as well as doing the cleaning in only a dustless environment.