I’ve owned a 20d now for 18months and have been fighting dust on the sensor for 16 of those months. At first I was able to use a visible dust brush that a friend of mine owns but recently I’ve been traveling so much I can’t always find the time to go over and use it, besides I’m sure he’s getting tired of me only showing up when I need to clean my sensor. So after a recent fight with an artist brush and sensor swabs I finally broke down and ordered a whole kit from copperhillimages.com.
What finally drove me over the edge was an hour long battle with a brush and sensor swabs. I sat down one evening to try and clean the sensor before a much anticipated weekend drive with my wife. I got out my can of air and my brush and sensor swabs and got to work. I first cleaned it with the sensor swabs and then used the brush with the air. After a test shot I saw smears across the whole image. I took another sensor swab out and cleaned it again. I got the brush and tried again. Then looking at it at an angle I saw where I had used the brush I was leaving smears, some how, I had gotten some gunk on the brush. After disposing of the brush properly (thrown correctly a brush can leave a dent) and tried again with the sensor swab. I was now getting very low on the swabs and very frustrated. I used the last sensor swab and found that all I was doing was pushing around the dust.
The next day I started looking at some options. I couldn’t stomach the idea of spending almost $100 for the visible dust brush so I looked for other options. I was close to ordering the lens pen for sensors but couldn’t find any source of customer recommendations. The only information/recommendations I found were from the company or had all the hallmarks of a company shill. So I decided to pass on the lens pen. It’s a great idea and if it’s as good as the company says, it will be the perfect travel (backpacking, carryon etc) sensor cleaning tool. I saw a number of other things from new companies but again no real usage stories or reviews by anyone. I finally decided to look at copper hill. Copper hill used to only have a pbase image gallery for ordering their cleaning tool, but now they actually have website and a paypal shopping cart. I ordered their whole cleaning kit (brush, wet cleaning, and lens cleaning kit).
The night I got the package from copperhill I spent a few minutes and used just the brush to see how it would work. It was great. I didn’t get everything off the sensor but I got most of it. The next night I had a chance I used the liquid cleaning method and the dry brush and I was able to get a clean sensor!!!
If you’re fighting with dust on your dslr sensor go to coppperhillimages.com and order at least their dry brush and wet cleaning kit. It will save you hours of misery.