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How To Check For Sensor Dust

Chris Gampat
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09/29/2010
1 Min read

Last Updated on 07/29/2011 by Chris Gampat

If you’re totally new to the world of DSLRs and interchangeable lens compacts, then you’ll perhaps be wondering what those weird specks are in your photos. Chances are that you’ve got a dirty sensor. My personal weapon of choice for dealing with this is the Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly(reviewed here) but sometimes even that can’t do the job and I’d require swabs. So how do you check for sensor dust in the first place?

– Open up either a blank document in wordpad, Google Docs, a new tab in your internet browser or a totally white screen in photoshop.

– Clean your monitor thoroughly to absolutely ensure that there is nothing on there like dust, specks, particles, etc. Otherwise this can flaw the integrity of the test.

– Set your camera to Aperture priority and close the aperture down to F/22. I usually use a prime lens of some sort when doing this. Also be sure to set your camera to ISO 100.

– Set your focus manually to infinity.

– Take a picture of the screen and take a look at the results. If you see specks like in the image above, that means you’ve got a dirty sensor. Once again though, double check against your monitor. At this point you may want to clean your sensor. If you don’t want to use a brush, there is always the Giottos Rocket Air Blasterand the LensPEN Lens Cleaning Systemthat may come in handy. Specially made Sensor Swabsalso work wonders.

arctic butterfly dirty sensor giottos rocket air blaster lenspen sensor cleaning sensor swabs
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.