Canon 40D

Here ya go, with pictures.

Taken at f/22 and f/16, MF-infinity and auto leveled- Cntrl+Shift+L on PS CS2. This shows you the scope of the NON problem.

Tools: CopperHill Imaging 14mm SensorSwipe (for APS-C sensors), Eclipse Cleaning Solution (Original not E2, E2 is for the cameras with self-cleaning ding dong), PecPads, scotch tape, giotto blower, some good old bollywood music and a relatively clean desk.

Put camera is sensor cleaning mode and squirted a few puffs of air using Giotto to dislodge any easily removable dust bunnies. And then did one sweep using the wet cleaning method

Can you see? Looks good, but not good enough. Can you see?

Second Pass and this time I cheated, I know from experince that most of the crud is swept to the edges of the frame, so I did the usual wet cleaning and I also cleaned the edges (in a rectangular, anti-clockwise manner) with a PecPad wrapped on a QTip. Can you see? I just messed it up even more? Look at the crud? Those streaks, that crud? OMG!!!

So I wrapped another PecPad on the sensor sweep and repeated the first pass. And this is what I got. I can live with this at f/16 (coz I don’t plan to shoot below f/8 over the coming weeks)

Its really that easy. Even a mathematician, statistician or even an Oracle can do it.
________
los angeles dispensary
________
Aldo costa

Post up a pic @ f/22, MF infinity. If you have CS2 then auto level it.

Also I suggest seeing what the same spot looks like @ f/16. I don’t go smaller than f/16 in actual application, f/22 is used to benchmark the cleaning. If the spot does not show up at f/16 then you are good to go.

If the spot is at the edge of the frame then you might have to wrap some Pec Pads on a Q-tip (or buy a $40 edge wand) see if that helps.

Remember it will take you about 2-3 tries before it becomes routine.

Thanks for encouraging me. I have tried 3 times to clean up to now. I made a couple of test pics this afternoon at different apertures. At f11 you can just see the dot that is difficult of remove. It is about halfway from the centre to the top of the picture. In the shop where I bought the stuff I was told to sweep one time forward and one time backwards with the 1.6* swab. Do people sweep more often and in different directions?

I feel comfortable while sweeping the sensor. The only thing that irritates me, is that I am not 100% succesful.:mad:

Ya know its very distressing to see otherwise intelligent photogs being so paranoid about cleaning their CMOS sensor.

It will seem intimidating the first time

:confused:

You’re forgetting, you speak from the perspective of someone who has done this before. There is NOTHING wrong, in any way about being a little worried about swabbing your sensor for the first time. It’s perfectly understandable and a level of apprehension is to be expected when people undertake things they’re not entirely familiar with. I’ve now swabbed a good number of DSLR’s many times and am perfectly confident now in doing so. It being new to me the first few times, I wasn’t quite as confident, which is to be expected. Now it’s second nature.

Paul

Post up a pic @ f/22, MF infinity. If you have CS2 then auto level it.

Also I suggest seeing what the same spot looks like @ f/16. I don’t go smaller than f/16 in actual application, f/22 is used to benchmark the cleaning. If the spot does not show up at f/16 then you are good to go.

If the spot is at the edge of the frame then you might have to wrap some Pec Pads on a Q-tip (or buy a $40 edge wand) see if that helps.

Remember it will take you about 2-3 tries before it becomes routine.
________
hotels in mexico
________
Lamborghini Bravo

Well, tried the trick today. Bought Eclipse and some Pec*pads. I have been around 90% succesful. There’s one dot that won’t leave. Any good ideas how to cope with that one?

Thanks guys,

With your assistance I have: found an interesting website about this subject:http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/

I have dry cleaned my EOS20D with my Giotto today (as I do weekly) and performed the test as described: aperture 22, manual focus: infinite etc. I used the ISO 400 setting, as I believe this make dust even more visible. I was a little horrified to see so many measles. In the next few days I will buy the nescesary stuff for wet cleaning. Should it turn out all wrong, I will be back here with my complaints. If it turns out well, I will be back sooner or later with clean pictures.

…………..I can assure you that after 2500 shots, apart from the three sticky smut marks I have collected, the rest of the sensor is remarkably clean.

I do expect to clean my sensor at some stage but not not too soon.

1) 40D is still pretty new.
2) It also depends on how often you change your lens in the field and what the field conditions are. There is no other entry for dust on CMOS, except lens changes.
3) It also depends on your camera hygiene levels. I dry clean (Giotto blower) my CMOS every week in the sensor clean mode and also the focus screen. Using the dry clean method is very useful in preventing build up and eventually getting crud that simply wont budge.

Its been 5 months since I cleaned my 20D CMOS and its still pretty clean up to f/16 and I attribute it not changing lenses in the field.

Its not about how many smut marks you have collected. You can just have one, but if that ONE shows up in your FOV and the final image at the aperture you set then its pretty irritating.

Bottom line: With or without in-built sensor cleaning, its a good idea to learn and use wet cleaning (since its not rocket science) and its always a good idea to practice good camera hygiene.
________
volcano vaporizer reviews
________
Sc2 Replays

(Quote) 6) Use Photoshop and auto level the resulting image. It will CLEARLY/DRAMATICALLY show you where all the crud is. And even if you live under the delusion that the ultrasonic system works, try this for yourself to see what your so called clean sensor looks like.(End quote)

___________________________________________________

Hi George

I agree with you that cleaning a sensor is not rocket science. I use eclipse fluid and digi pads on my 30D.

As far as the 40D is concerned, I test for the smut markes using equalise in my Photoshop Elements 2. It shows up the smut just as well as auto level. I can assure you that after 2500 shots, apart from the three sticky smut marks I have collected, the rest of the sensor is remarkably clean.

I do expect to clean my sensor at some stage but not not too soon.

Martin

Cleaning your CMOS sensor

Ya know its very distressing to see otherwise intelligent photogs being so paranoid about cleaning their CMOS sensor.

It’s really NOT rocket science. There are enough and more validated tools and methods out there to do it safely and effectively.

Using the ultrasonic sensor is not the the-all and end-all in keeping the sensor if you guys (at least the Canon users) hang out on Photography-on-the.net* you will know that even the XTi is no great shakes when it comes to keeping dust out even with its so called cleaning system. And its illogical to expect the 40D to be any different.

Its really very simple to WET clean:

1) Practice good camera hygine. Use a giotto blower regularly to clean the sensor (this is called the dry cleaning method) this will take out most of the crud that the so called Canon Sensor cleaning system would have taken out anyway.

2) Invest in a the RIGHT sensor wand/swip for your CMOS sensor (14mm for the APS-C bodies like 20/30/40/400D)

3) Invest it the RIGHT cleaning solution. Eclipse (original) for bodies without built in sensor cleaning and Eclipse 2 for ones with the ultrasonic sensor cleaning.

4) Buy some Pec*Pads.

5) Turn you camera to f/22 and MF and set it to infinity and take a pic of a white background/screen.

6) Use Photoshop and auto level the resulting image. It will CLEARLY/DRAMATICALLY show you where all the crud is. And even if you live under the delusion that the ultrasonic system works, try this for yourself to see what your so called clean sensor looks like.

7) Most sensor swipe/wands come with instructions on wrapping PecPad on them. Use 2 drops of eclipse/eclipse2 wait for 5-10 seconds to let excess evaporate (if not it will smear and you will panic…been there done that) and clean in one direction. It will seem intimidating the first time…the second time….the third time…and after that when you see such posts you too will get irritated, since you know how ridiculously easy it is to keep sensor clean.

8) The edges are tough to clean even with sensor wands, I use q-tips with PecPads wrapped around them, coz I dont want to buy a $40 edge cleaning wand. It works great.

Unless you subsitute PecPads with 200 grit sand paper or clean your camera in a saw-mill, flour mill or the beach or in the middle of London you really cant go wrong. Heck even the mathematicians and statisticians that populate this forum could do it.

___________________________________________________
*something I had harped about when I started posting on the AFM Photog section and some Oracle actually had the audiocity (its not a typo) to tell me that you don’t need to goto POTN as AFM has enough folks with experience to talk about all things about photography.
________
Rehab Community
________
VAPORIZER HELP

Martin,

Thanks for the extensive answer. I think it will be a 40D for me just before the next airshow season.

Thanks Martin. I’m considering buying a new body somewhere april next year. I now have a 20D which is to become my second body. Dust is the only real problem that I have with this one. I wonder whether the dust protection of the 40D is working well. What is your opinion on this?

Hi Arjan. Sorry I did not reply earlier.

I have used the camera on four air show days so far, both days at Shoreham then the Old Warden Evening Diplay last Saturday and Seething Charity air day on Sunday.

Thankefully the sensor was clean when I purchased the camera. It appears that the dust protection on the 40D is working as well as hoped.

Dust does get on the sensor but most of it seems to come and go. Perhaps this is due to turning the camera on after I have I changed the CF card or battery which is when the dust shake feature is meant to work. When the dust shaker operation is turned on (by default) it is confirmed by the display on the back of the camera.

Nevertheless, it is not perfect. By the end of the 2nd day at Shoreham there were three smut marks of the sticky kind and they were still there by the end of the Seething Show last Sunday. Apart from this, I find it remarkable that the rest of the sensor is clean even from the smallest of blemishes.

I test for smut marks when I use equalise in Photoshop.

As far as the my first impressions from using the camera, I hink I have confirmed my opinions to myself. Still not too sure about whether focusing is more responsive as much of this is down to the operator. I am also constantly trombone zooming with my 100-400 IS lens which does not help keep the camera steady.

I used the highlight prority mode at OW and Seething. At Old Warden I sew little evidence of increased noise in shadow areas, possibly as the the majority of a particular aircraft was in sunshine (in what little sun we had)

I think it does record the highlights in better detail but it will not do so if glare has completely washed them out. It is not a cure all.

At Seething where the contrast between sunny areas of the aircraft and shadow areas were greater due to harsh sunlight, unless the majority of the aircarft is in sunlight it is best to avoid the highlight priority particularly of aircraft that are dark coloured (e/g brown) There can be a noticeable but small increase of noise in shadow areas though the recording of detail is still good.

I will probably use the highlight prority from time to time when I judge it advantageous. Just one more setting to mess around with during a display.

Thanks

Martin

Thanks Martin. I’m considering buying a new body somewhere april next year. I now have a 20D which is to become my second body. Dust is the only real problem that I have with this one. I wonder whether the dust protection of the 40D is working well. What is your opinion on this?

Martin,

What body did you use before the 40D?

Hi Arjan

30D though some will think I am mad for getting the 40D. Need another body anyway. More worth it if one is upgrading from a 20D.

Cheers

Martin

Hi

I went to a shop last Friday with the intention of just buying a CF card but when I saw they had the 40D on sale with the stock arriving earlier that very day, I went against my own advice abnout waiting 6 months before any potential bugs are ironed out and purchased a 40D there and then.

I used it at the Shoreham airshow last weekend under mostly bright or sunny conditions so I can only give my first impressions. I will need another couple of weeks before I can confirm my opening impressions to myself. I need to get use to the camera a bit more and use it under other lighting conditions. Nevertheless, I certainly hope the last few remaining air shows will be sunny as well.

My impressions:

Better recording of detail.

Better colour reproduction and graduation across the image

Very good at focusing on dark images e/g dark aircraft against dark blue sky (where sun is in front of crowd line)

As far as autofocusing is in genearal. The higher sensitivity for autofocusing only works as cross type on the outer focus points at apetures of F5.6 or larger so do not expect a huge improvement if your lens apeture is not any bigger.

I prefer to stick with my Cannon IS100-400 lens even though the focus points may not work as cross type on this lens. All that I can say at the moment is that autofocusing is not worse using the 100-400 lens. I will need a couple of more air shows to decide if I have more hits with the autofocus. I do have a Sigma F2.8 120-300 but rarely use it but I might try it out with this Camera.

All the telephoto lens (not the wide angle ones) pics in my Shoreham air show thread have been taken with my 40D but as they are only small web size images you cannot judge the camera from looking at them.

I checked my high res RAW images in DPP by moving the sharpening slider right up to 10 to see how they looked.

The settings I used were standard and ranged betweenn ISO100 to ISO250 in shutter prority at 320th a sec to 1000th a sec except for a few landings where lower shutter speeds were used.

I have not done any high res A4 size sample prints yet. That is what mtters most to me but I am quite confident.

At the moment I am happy with the camera. No electronic bugs……..yet!

Hope this helps.

Martin,

What body did you use before the 40D?

Great review, my mind is just about made up. I have to say though, at around £750 for the body, it represents better value as a new release than the £1100 I paid for my new 10D body, 4 years ago…

Hi

I went to a shop last Friday with the intention of just buying a CF card but when I saw they had the 40D on sale with the stock arriving earlier that very day, I went against my own advice abnout waiting 6 months before any potential bugs are ironed out and purchased a 40D there and then.

I used it at the Shoreham airshow last weekend under mostly bright or sunny conditions so I can only give my first impressions. I will need another couple of weeks before I can confirm my opening impressions to myself. I need to get use to the camera a bit more and use it under other lighting conditions. Nevertheless, I certainly hope the last few remaining air shows will be sunny as well.

My impressions:

Better recording of detail.

Better colour reproduction and graduation across the image

Very good at focusing on dark images e/g dark aircraft against dark blue sky (where sun is in front of crowd line)

As far as autofocusing is in genearal. The higher sensitivity for autofocusing only works as cross type on the outer focus points at apetures of F5.6 or larger so do not expect a huge improvement if your lens apeture is not any bigger.

I prefer to stick with my Cannon IS100-400 lens even though the focus points may not work as cross type on this lens. All that I can say at the moment is that autofocusing is not worse using the 100-400 lens. I will need a couple of more air shows to decide if I have more hits with the autofocus. I do have a Sigma F2.8 120-300 but rarely use it but I might try it out with this Camera.

All the telephoto lens (not the wide angle ones) pics in my Shoreham air show thread have been taken with my 40D but as they are only small web size images you cannot judge the camera from looking at them.

I checked my high res RAW images in DPP by moving the sharpening slider right up to 10 to see how they looked.

The settings I used were standard and ranged betweenn ISO100 to ISO250 in shutter prority at 320th a sec to 1000th a sec except for a few landings where lower shutter speeds were used.

I have not done any high res A4 size sample prints yet. That is what mtters most to me but I am quite confident.

At the moment I am happy with the camera. No electronic bugs……..yet!

Hope this helps.

Canon 40D

Hi,

I’m going to be buying a Canon 40D (with the 17-85mm IS Lense) within the next few weeks, and I was wondering what your guys views on the camera are…

Thanks in Advance!

Sam
N_G

Sam,

The reviews I have read have all been based on a pre-production model, however the vibs seem good. For my own part, I will try and hold off buying a 40D body until the price comes down a bit!

Regards

Eric

Hi,

I’m going to be buying a Canon 40D (with the 17-85mm IS Lense) within the next few weeks, and I was wondering what your guys views on the camera are…

Thanks in Advance!

Sam
N_G

Well it’s only just released but previews suggest it carries on the Canon EOS range as planned. Basically it appears to continue the prosumer/consumer relationship already established by the 10D-300D/20D-350D/30D-400D ranges. Presumably there will now be a stripped down ‘450D’ in the pipeline for the budget conscious ?

I think it’s time I took a step up from my 10D… ? 😀

Going to be doing the same thing mate, just getting the 24-105 L with it instead. Great reviews here:
http://rolandlim.wordpress.com/2007/09/02/canon-eos-40d-review/