I cleaned the camera sensor after getting back from this trip.

1.  When the built-in cleaning mechanism is unable to keep the sensor clean.  This tells me that there is something sticking in place that is not easily removed on its own.  Further, when the built-in mechanism removes dust from the sensor, it has to put it somewhere.  When that “somewhere” gets full, the mechanism just can’t do its job anymore.  It’s like a vacuum cleaner loses its cleaning ability when the tank is full.  When that happens, I will usually pull out my Rocket Blower to get stuff off the sensor.

2.  When the Rocket Blower no longer is able to clan the tough spots with its powerful puff of air, I generally tend to take one last ditch effort with my own Lens Pen or PecPad solution to swab the sensor clean with that special cleaning solution.  The theory here is that if something really is “stuck” on the sensor, I should be able to wipe it off with this Lens Pen solution.  When my own efforts to remove sensor dust at this level are ineffective, it’s time for me to consider a professional cleaning.

3.  Because I live in a suburb of a larger metropolitan area, getting a professional cleaning is my next “level” of cleaning.  When it goes past my ability to clean, the guys over at CamRen do a great job of getting all the nitty gritty off my sensor, and for a reasonable price ($50).  Plus, it’s done very quickly (usually same day service), so my down time is minimal.  The only thing I don’t get is the “certified” service from Canon.  I don’t know if Canon does anything extra or special in their maintenance procedures, but I’ve never had need to use their services.

4.  Annual maintenance: I try to maintain a cleaning schedule of at least annually…meaning that even if in the past 12 months my sensor hasn’t gotten “that” dirty, I’ll get it cleaned professionally anyway, just because I am a little OCD about keeping things clean.  For me, the investment in keeping gear clean just makes the equipment last longer (and easier to sell if I ever upgrade).

5.  When it gets dirty! – I know this sounds rather obvious, but it probably does need to be said, at least to point out particular scenarios.  My general rule of thumb is that I will get an extra cleaning cycle in if the camera gets a lot of heavy use in a short period of time.  For instance, my trip to the Adirondacks, the coast of southern Mexico, or the Wild Sand Dunes of Colorado all ended with a professional cleaning.  I tend to change lenses a lot so when I do that “in the field”, more dust tends to get in more often.  So just to stay ahead of the game, I have a professional service done after such events, because odds are – a lot of dust hit that sensor!

Those are my five times to clean my sensor – but as stated above, these “rules” are not carved in stone.  Merely my own guidelines for how to clean my sensor and when to clean it.  In giving these guidelines the light of day, it of course begs the question to the reading audience:  When do you clean your sensors?  Do you have any criteria?  Schedules? Levels of filth that are tolerable versus intolerable?  What does it take before you clean your own camera sensor (or get it cleaned)?  How many of you have ever cleaned or tried to clean your own camera sensor?  I know there’s a lot of trepidation out there on this topic, so have no fear if that describes you – you’re not alone!

Coming up tomorrow, the $64,000 question – how to avoid getting dust on your sensor!

1.  Let the Camera Do It! – Many cameras today have a technology called “Dust Delete Data” where you can identify portions of your sensor that have evidence of sensor dust.  Once the camera has these points identified, it will digitally remove said exhibitions of dust and you can go on your merry way.  I’ve never used this method though, with the understanding from others who have that it is not 100% foolproof.  Additionally, in my mind – the dust is still there, so if the camera can’t do it automatically, I want to!

2.  Edit manually – Many purists may think it’s a time honored tradition to pour over your image, pixel by pixel and eliminate dust spots using the clone stamp tool in Photoshop, dodging and burning in the darkroom or correcting for its.  While this is certainly a viable method, and is likely the best way to ensure all dust spots are cleaned.  The problem is that over time, this can become very tedious.  Quite frankly, with all the software tools and services available, the usefulness of this approach even for the thrifty-minded has really become more time and labor-intensive than most people can tolerate, so not sure this is as viable an option as it used to be…nevertheless, it is an option, so I would be remiss in not mentioning it!

3.  Use a Rocket Blower  -  Often times, dust is just a light piece of foreign material that snuck its way onto your sensor when you were swapping gear out in the field (We all do it…).  The good news is that stuff like this is easy to clean out using a Rocket Blower (like this one from Giottos) to blow any errant dust off the sensor and let gravity do the rest.  The reason this is good news is that you don’t have to touch the sensor (yikes!), and 9 times out of ten, you are all set to go shooting again at a minimal cost (these can be found pretty cheaply on B&H, Adorama, or your own favorite retailer).  The bad news is that if this doesn’t work, now you gotta spend some money!

4.  Clean it yourself – There are many solutions available on the marketplace ranging from a full Rocket Blower and lens cleaning kit (like the one featured above), or the popular Lens Pens,  to dedicated full cleaning kits like this one from Delkin and alcohol swabs where you can gingerly switch your camera from auto cleaning mode to manual mode and reveal the sensor for you to dabble as best you can.  While the long term benefits of this solution are quite good (a good cleaning kit will cost you about $50 – the price of one professional cleaning and can last for dozens if not scores of cleanings), you run the risk of damaging your camera if you aren’t both a) very careful and b)steady with your hands!

5.  Pay a pro – The course of action to take if you are beyond the Rocket Blower, and just don’t want to muck around where your Thunder Thumbs don’t belong in the first place!  Most cities have services where you can drop off your camera and pick it up the same day for anywhere from $50 to $100.  Most vendors also offer a cleaning service from them.  The problem there is you have to ship it to the service center, pay for the privilege, and then be without your gear for a certain period of time!  Now if you are a member of the Canon Professional Service, these cleanings are done for free (but the price of entry isn’t cheap in terms of gear ownership!).  I’m pretty sure Nikon and Pentax have similar offerings for professionals who use their gear.

Thankfully, a few shops here in Denver offer this service, and when my gear gets sticky enough, it’s time to take it in!   I think it’s time, given the amount of dust in the first image:

Versus the amount of time it took to clean this in post production (about ten minutes…this was just the upper left corner)

So, this naturally begets two more questions, right?  How often should you get your gear cleaned?  and How to Avoid Sensor Dust in the First Place!  Well, you’re in luck, because guess what’s coming up tomorrow! (You had to see this was coming, right?   Happy shooting (and cleaning), and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

*****

Don’t forget, the monthly photo contest is on – win a free Lensbaby Composer!  Get your shots in for a chance to win a super cool lens worth $300 retail! (Still trying to get the folks at Lensbaby to let me review the new one…)

So, in the interests of not hitting the email subscription base with a lot all at once, I’ve pulled the remaining posts and will have them go live next Monday (possibly over the weekend as well), to ensure the gear reviews get their fair share of “air time”.  I know some will be very interested in reading about the Sigma 85mm f1.4 I’ve had on loan for a few months here now (being returned to Sigma on Monday).

In any case, thanks for all your patience as I sort out these snafus and hopefully return to a regular blogging schedule come Monday!  Have a great weekend all!

For instance – I’ve written articles and posts about maintaining your gear and checking things periodically (the most detailed of these can be found here).  This advice is good advice and extends to your entire gear collection – not just the cameras and lenses.  It includes tripods, ball heads, batteries, flash cards, and so much more.  Cleaning and maintaining your gear is a ritual that we all have. Some may be more detail-specific than others who choose to send gear off for extensive cleaning and maintenance, so it’s really a matter of personal preference.

While recently working on my 10-stop filter project (which was intended to be published this month), I noticed that my ball head was coming loose.  Several times I had taken my allen wrench to the base and tried to tighten things down.  Short term fixes proved fruitless though, and I ended up having to send it off to Bogen/Manfrotto for a true service call.  It might have to do with the little spring that I saw go flying out of the ball head while on my Adirondack trip but I can’t be sure.

I’ve had this post in the works for some time now, and with all but  a few shots completed, believed it within the time frame to finish the project up this month.  It’s not in the cards though, as the tension spring for the tripod ball head has loosened sufficiently that I no longer feel comfortable relying on it to keep the SLR securely in place.  Since my DIY efforts to keep things maintained were not sufficient, the head has now officially left the premises and is en route to be repaired by the folks at Manfrotto.  It was actually a pretty good deal – shipping costs only to get it off to them for an estimate, and regardless of whether repaired, they return free of charge.

Given that it’s only a tension spring in the base of the ball head, I can’t imagine the cost being too exorbitant, so the fix should be taken care of in short order, and I’ll get the gear back and be ready for shooting again!  It does mean that the promised DIY project I mentioned in the newsletter, (you do subscribe to the newsletter, right?) will not materialize in September as originally anticipated.  But, in the interests of practicing what I preach, the ball head was sent off for maintenance, so it looks like the DIY project will have to wait until October.

Since the ball head (and legs) are starting to show some wear and tear, it may be time to retire the heavy aluminum set and look to invest in some carbon fiber legs. With all the options out there ranging from the Manfrotto line to the Gitzo line and everything in between – what does the reading audience say?  Any suggestions for what to do moving forward?  This will likely become a full-fledged post of its own tomorrow on things to consider, but would welcome some feedback from the reading audience up front.  Sound off in the comments on your own preferences – I’d love to hear what directions different people have taken and why.  Until tomorrow then…happy shooting!

Whenever I get these kinds of messages, it’s a sign to me that things need to be cleaned up.  I’ve installed too many trial programs for testing – my working drive is getting cluttered.  I’ve not re-booted in a few days.  We all know the drill, and we all have our own work flow on how we do this kind of maintenance and optimization.  That’s a funny word “optimize”.  It’s kind of like the CSI word “enhance” that they use for zooming in and adding detail on grainy satellite images.  It just sounds kind of corny.  I think Windows even used it when it was doing an update after I cleaned out a few things.

So, today, I thought I’d share a weekly suggested work flow for doing these kinds of optimizations on your computer.  This is not set in stone, and if you miss something, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s a starting point:

Monday

Operating System and Application Updates – Are all your applications up to date?  Most have a “Check for updates” feature built into the menu system, and many can be set to automatically check periodically, but it never hurts to check on your own – you may find bug fix updates that aren’t part of the regular ones.  The same holds true for your cameras – check vendor websites for possible firmware updates, because cameras can’t check on their own (at least not yet)!

Tuesday

Virus/spyware scans – Your computer does have some kind of security measures in place, right?  Well, it can help to use them periodically just to make sure nothing slipped past you unwittingly.  Trial software can often include spammy things and who knows what gets added in those!  Run the deepest scan (you can run quick scans from really intensive scans with some software like McAfee and Symantec) on Tuesday, and start it just before you go to bed – it will run over the course of the night and when you get up in the morning, it should be done.

Wednesday

Here we go, it’s time to “optimize” things.  Pick a day (mine is Wednesday) to run the optimization tasks.  Things like defragmenting your hard drive and removing trial versions of software are part of this.  I also use this day to go through my bookmarks and favorites and re-organize everything (I add stuff all the time).  I’ll remove stuff I’ve not visited in a while, or drag shortcuts into folders within the bookmarks.  I also take the few minutes after this is done to export a copy of the bookmarks and shortcuts to a backup copy in case disaster strikes.

Thursday

Don’t forget your online presence.  Most people have an online presence these days.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even your own website are just a few examples of our online “footprint”.  Pick a day and go through each of these accounts, taking the time to update things.  Reply to followers comments and questions on Twitter (although you really should do this one more often).  Post an update or two on Facebook of what you’ve been doing for the last week.  Update your LinkedIn connections.  You are adding new contacts to your network more often than you think, and it just makes sense to tap all these resources together.  Plus, people like to stay in touch, and giving updates lets people know about what is new with you, and ways they can connect with you.  Don’t neglect your website either.  Out taking pictures?  Upload a new gallery of photos.  Even if there’s nothing of “show quality”, it can help to keep people engaged with you.

Friday

I saved the most important one for last, and that is the weekly BACKUP!  I’ve talked about this a lot, and cannot reiterate enough the importance of regular backups.  You may not have much change over the course of a week, which is why things like incremental and differential backups (if you are really into the geek factor) can be useful.  But still, even without the geek factor – are you prepared to lose the entire week of projects and work?  Make a backup somehow, somewhere.  The peace of mind alone is worth the 10-20 minutes it takes to do this.

So, there you have it, a weekly optimization schedule for you to try.  It can seem insurmountable to tackle all these things at once, because for most of us, it is!  If you break it down though into smaller tasks, each can be done with minimal impact on your other activities, and can save you many headaches down the road.

Since we’re on the subject of optimizing things – the blog also has gone through some updates as well.  I’ve cleaned things up a little here (part of my Thursday routine), and the pages should load a lot faster now.  You will also notice in the far right sidebar a list of “related posts”.  This will bring up a selection of related content that may be of interest to you.  Check it out and feel free to peruse the Archives as well.

There’s also the Online Photography Test, which remains a popular page – have you taken the test recently?  Stop over and give it a whirl!  There’s lots of content on the blog now (3 years worth anyway) and many people have found it useful!  I’ve also introduced some sponsors from Google and Amazon that show up as related material on various pages and most archives, so if you see something useful, follow the white rabbit – the cost is the same to you, but it helps support the blog!

To wrap things up for this week – don’t forget the February contest closes tonight at midnight, so be sure you get your pictures in.  Only about 18 hours left (as of the writing of this post), so don’t delay, enter today!  Happy shooting everyone, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here again on Monday!

Imagine the following lens:

1. 1. Can capture wide angle panoramas
   2. Can capture detail as close as one inch away.
   3. Can capture detail as far away as 300 feet in most cases.
   4. Can adjust to extreme low light scenarios in an instant
   5. Can adjust to extreme bright light scenarios in an instant
   6. Can capture HDR imagery with no post processing
   7. Can capture 3-D in the truest sense of the word
   8. Can capture images with no pixelation
   9. Can capture the widest tonal range available in the visible light spectrum.

How much would you spend on these lenses? How much would you protect, treasure, and cherish them? We all love our high quality optical glass whether we be Canonites, Nikonians, Pentaxians, Olympians or whatever. Across all brands, we know the value of high quality optics, and also know that such optics do not come cheaply.

We also know that owning such gear requires regular maintenance. I know people who take a lens out of it’s case, place it on a camera, take a picture, and when done, replace it right back in the case. When the lens costs upwards of $5000 or even $10,000 for the super zooms, it’s understandable. Many would say that even the most expensive lenses in the market today do not meet all of the above 9 criteria. So, it’s kind of hard to put a price on such a hypothetical lens.

However, we are all given two of these lenses by default – even before we got into photography. What are these two lenses that are priceless? OUR EYES!

Think of all the time we spend cleaning our lenses, wiping them down, avoiding scuffs, chips, and keeping away from dust and dirt as much as possible. Then compare that to the amount of time we spend maintaining our optical health. It’s kind of ironic, eh?. So many of us take our eyes for granted. The moral of the story?

GET YOUR EYES CHECKED REGULARLY!!!

I just got back from my annual eye exam the other day, with some good and bad news. The good news is that the glaucoma and macular degeneration which runs in the family (both sides) has not reared its ugly head yet. The bad news is that apparently I am getting to an age in my eye health where I need a little assistance at both the near and far end of vision – in other words: bifocals! *shudder*

While it’s not the end of the world, and I certainly can swallow my pride, accept the fact that my eyes will see better and get the glasses, it is just another anecdote where a little education can come from it – to take care of your own lenses (your eyes).   After all, without your own lenses, the rest of the lenses in the world won’t make a difference!  On that note, let’s get out and use our eyes to capture the world around us!  Happy shooting, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

• The Podcast (with the specific details of the contest)
• Flickr Group (where to post your entries)

In some other maintenance notes, the podcast has gotten a few more reviews at iTunes and Diggs over at Personal Life Media – thanks to those that have shared their thoughts and feedback, your support means a lot and every little bit helps. Here’s the links for those that would like to add to the support:

• Review on iTunes
• Digg the Podcast at Personal Life Media

Last but not least, it became official the other day that I will be in attendance at the Lightroom workshop here in Denver coming up on May 20th Being led by none other than Scott Kelby, of NAPP fame, I’ll be getting even more up to speed on how to use Lightroom as the primary means for my photography work flow. I’ll likely have a few posts worth of material to share with the readership shortly thereafter. (Who knows – I might be able to snag a pic or two out of it too!

So, that’s it for today – sorry for the lateness of the post.  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

The reason behind the new flow is due to many listener questions asking a wide variety of questions, ranging from hardware questions to software questions, technical questions, work flow questions and the like.  So, in the interests of providing answers to each of the wide subject matter areas, here’s the new schedule:

• Monday: Hardware – I’ll take a look at hardware components, ranging from lenses to bodies, attachments and accessories.  This could come in the way of a review, a summary, or other commentary.
• Tuesday: Software – many elements of photography involve using software, whether it be organizing your library of images, to managing that library, and editing idividual photos.  Here is where I’ll take a look at software reviews, editing tips and tricks, considering work flows,and other similar subjects.
• Wednesday: Composition – As with anything else, you only get better when you practice what you preach.  We can only learn so much from reading – and today I’ll focus on the “doing”.  How to take better pictures, what elements of composition work, what elements of composition don’t work, what to look for, what to avoid… things of that nature.
• Thursday: Free-for-all – Who knows what may happen – I’ve been doing the “Thursday Thoughts with…” series, and this may happen from time to time – I’ll keep everyone on their toes with this post! (This will probably also be the post that includes show notes for the weekly podcast hosted over at Personal Life Media, Learning Digital Photography.)
• Friday: Weekly wrap-up – news and events of the week, notable items of interest to photographers, and the occasional note with blog announcements, and other administrative types of things.

So, in kicking things off, here is the first installment of a look at some of the hardware in my own gear bag (since many of you dear readers have asked about that stuff specifically).  This week, I take a look at the 10-22mm lens from Canon.

This lens has been the premiere wide angle lens for quite some time, as the widest non-fisheye available on the market.  Only recently have Sigma and now Nikon added this specific range to their inventory of available lenses.  I absolutely love this lens and have used it for everything from landscape work to architecture work, and even some portrait work when I am going for a unique look.  In general you won’t use a wide angle lens for portrait work because of the distortion that can occur when you get up close.  This distortion can work to your advantage if that is the look you are going for though.  Alternatively, if you have a larger group of people, a wider lens may be required to fit everyone in the scene.

Fitted with the well-regarded USM feature for Canon lenses, I also love this lens for it’s whisper quiet and fast focusing.  You almost can’t even hear it as it locks in on your point of focus.

On the downside (if this can be considered one) – because it is an EF-S lens, this will not work on the full frame cameras.  So, shooters using the Canon 1Ds series (Mark II or III).  While full-frame lenses may be the future of digital photography, there are enough people out there with the Rebel series, and the family of 20D-50D bodies that can really take advantage of this lens.  I have to give this lens two thumbs up!

ETA:  Update:  I had inadvertently made the notation that the 10-22mm is an “L” lens from Canon.  This is not the case – thanks go out to Bill for detecting this.  While it was a typo, the disctintion is an important one because Canon designates their high end glass with the letter “L”.

Those of you on the blog, you can see what I am talking about – this new theme is much more photo friendly – the header image is more standardized, so I can start putting more of my images into the rotation for everyone to enjoy.  Plugins also enjoy more support, as does the RSS, calendar, and other sidebar features.  For those of you picking this up via the feeds, please take some time to stop over and enjoy the new layout.  This is, of course, the “first look”, and I will likely be making some adjustments as things settle in, including widening the body width for the main posting area, and dressing up the edges a little.  Any ideas for what to consider?  More pics?  Perhaps some page links?  (I noticed the pages area is now not visible from the main one…)  Feel free to chime in now while I am still in “clean-up” mode!

Okay, so the Spring Cleaning is a little premature, but felt it was needed due not only to update some features, but also due to some coding deficiencies were brought to my attention (thanks, and shout outs to Kerry of Camera Dojo!).  Anyway, on a happy note, I’ll leave you with a little WTD humor since it’s been a while for a comic post:

What the Duck

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on the new theme/layout in the comments – it’s now or never to see your feedback implemented!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here Monday morning!

Hey all, it’s been a busy couple of days for the blog. I’ve been doing some research and maintenance on the blog to try and keep things interesting and to hopefully let more people know about the articles, essays, tips, tricks, techniques, and such that I’ve been sharing now for the past 9 months. I realized that I was in dire need of this when I saw my post count was up near 200 (hint: Thursday will be significant…) and I had not really taken any measures to get the blog registered in any directories.

So, after some research and study, I took some time Friday and Saturday to look at a number of directories and the types of blogs that are typical of those various venues. A couple that caught my eye include:

• Alltop
• Podango
• PodcastReady

Of these, Alltop is definitely one of the coolest ones as they have a Photography category. On looking at the category, pretty much every blog that I’ve ever been to was on there along with a few that I’d not heard of. So, I sent them an email to inquire, and as you can probably tell from the new Directory listings on the side panel, they seemed willing to at least give me a try. So, thanks and shout outs to Alltop for the quick addition. Fair warning though – for those of you that may stop in there, you will likely find new must reads to add to your daily surf list. The one that caught my eye is a blog called Hyperphocal, with Chris Bergman. While still fairly new, the approach he seems to be taking with the blog is very similar to the one here at CB – sharing information, helping other photographers, Plus, his own blogroll reminded me of Digital Camera Resource, which I’d known about but forgotten for some time. So, thanks to Chris for putting that back on my radar.

Back on the directory subject though, the listings have been moved in the side panel to the bottom, as has the Google search box and the Feedburner subscription box. I think putting all that material in the same area gives a cleaner and smoother look to the blog. An iTunes one should be up shortly, I’ve just not had a chance to get the graphic I am looking for. If anyone has other subscription services they use, or that they can recommend, I am open to suggestions here as well. Feel free to stop in to any of these directories and share your thoughts of the blog, I’ve provided direct links to those directories where CB is already live.

The last bit about podcast directories though – even though I’ve been blogging and podcasting for a little over 9 months now, the idea of promoting the blog/podcast is somewhat foreign to me. Adding CB to a few directories seems like a good idea, but I would like to hear what others might suggest for venues or approaches to take. Should I promote the blog? If so, where? How? Are the ones I picked popular? I am in uncharted waters here, so would appreciate any suggestions or comments from the readership. if you’re reading directly, feel free to post in the comments. If you are reading from a feed, or would prefer to to comment publicly, please feel free to drop me an email. The address (as always) is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com.

Other maintenance I did on the blog:

I removed the Dig button that was on each post. With a grand total of perhaps 20 digs over the last nine months, it was just another graphic that was taking up space and slowing down the blog more than it needed to. So, unless I start hearing screams for it back (which I doubt), the Dig button is toast!

A few pictures were added to the header rotation. I manually rotate that periodically to change out the look and feel, depending on the post of the day, so you may start seeing a little more variety there. If I can get to it on my “To Do” list, I’ll try to add full-size versions of the header images to the Flickr photo stream.

In photo news today, I got my copies of two reprints I ordered through reading The Online Photographer. The titles are “The New West: Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range” by Robert Adams, and “The Photographer’s Eye“, by John Szarkowski. Being a Coloradan at heart, I tore the shrink wrap off Mr. Adams book first. I’m about a third of the way through it, and the black-and-white approach he takes to address both the man-made and natural landscapes (especially along the corridor of I-25) are pretty interesting. I would definitely recommend at least seeing if your local library has a copy of this book. I know spending $20 on a book of pictures can be off-putting to some, especially when we are trying to create our own works and possibly our own books. Nevertheless, I am quite happy with the purchase as viewing the works of others helps me to refine and hone my own vision that much more. Thanks to Mike J. from TOP for the heads up on these reprints – hopefully the few pennies he got from the referral purchase will pay for at least a few minutes worth of hosting!

Last, but not least, you may have noticed from the casual reference above, CB has joined the Flickr frenzy. That’s right, there is now a Flickr group for the blog. As I mentioned, I will start uploading full-size versions of pics that are rotated through the blog header, as well as some other shots that may be fun to view that weren’t really “croppable” to header size (is croppable a word?). Anyway, on the Flickr group, anyone is welcome to share images, tips, tricks, ideas, suggestions, feedback, or just share photos with one another. Here’s the link for anyone who’s interested: Canon Blogger on Flickr Fair warning though – if I see pics in the photo stream there I will likely be giving shout outs and links to your stream on the site. (Just keep the images PG-rated is all I ask…)

Well, that should be enough news for Monday. Until tomorrow, keep on shooting and watch those apertures!