Potential Bummer

Spent a nice weekend at my Mom's in St. Alban's Maine. Took the opportunity to get up early every day and take pictures. She has a beautiful peaceful place on a lake, and it gave me a lot of options. Was up at the crack of 6 and spent a couple hours each morning out in the cold till my fingers got numb.

Getting back to the house, I reviewed my pictures and was dismayed to see major dust on every picture, whether I used the standard or zoom lens. The spot was there. That means the dust was in on the sensor. Oh groan. That bummed me out bad. Tried brushing the inside of the camera with my camera brush, and I tried blowing on it. I later learned that that is a major rookie mistake. I could have scratched the sensor and that would cost big $$. Luckily, I don't think I did, but I did blow more lint on the sensor than I had to begin with. The immediate solution to clean up my pictures was Photoshop. Thank God for that. The pictures below show before and after using PS.

Before:

After:

Farm on Big Indian Lake

Image was shot with Telephoto Lens from about a mile away at 8:20 am.

Speed 1/2s; Aperture f/25.8; ISO-200;

Yesterday I went to my local camera shop and picked up a Digital Bulb blower. For a while it just seemed to move the big particles in the camera around, but at last I got it out!

So lesson for the day is....keep a bulb blower handy. You don't want to touch the sensor, and dust is bound to get in your camera when switching lenses. It was only $8 as compared to the $65 and 3 weeks that the camera store quoted to clean the sensor for me. Luckily it worked.

And no, I did not use Photoshop to get any dust particles off of the blower. They are all there.

Em