[Parker]

Originally Posted by Ben

Using a rocket blower to clean your sensor is extremely dangerous, and if you don't break your camera using it, all you're doing is blowing dust around the chamber.

A sensor swab is the ONLY real way (and best way) to clean a sensor.

I guess what people are not understanding is the self-cleaning sensor doesn't swallow dust. It's not some magical invention that eliminates dust or makes your sensor never get dirty. What it does is vibrate a plate on the sensor and shakes dust particles off the sensor and makes them fall in to the chamber. To most, that sounds like a completely useless function. Who gives a **** if it vibrates dust and moves it around, it's still there! True, but it's not ON the sensor, and you don't see one little SPEC of dust. Sensor dust becomes a problem when it clumps together and you start seeing spots. That basically can't happen on a self-cleaning sensor.

rocket blowers are the best way to clean your sensor for a newb because with the swab you can only wipe in specific directions and you have to know just how hard you can press before you start doing damage to the sensor.

and i'll have to find the site that shows the comparo's between the cameras with self-cleaning sensors. it clears a lot up.

[Parker]

found it:

http://pixinfo.com/en/articles/ccd-dust-removal/

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Parker

found it:

http://pixinfo.com/en/articles/ccd-dust-removal/

It's an interesting article, but who leaves their camera open, on its back, in a dusty room, for 5 minutes?

My camera, in 5 years, is never going to get that dirty. I never change my lenses in a dusty environment, I change the lenses with the camera facing the ground, and I only ever have a lens off for at most THREE seconds.

I don't expect a self-cleaning sensor to be able to take years of dirt off in 2 minutes. The idea is that over the course of time it would take to get that much dust in your camera the self-cleaner would turn on and off HUNDREDS of times in between. It knocks the dust off before it clumps together and gets STUCK, like in their test.

The bottom line is to accurately perform a test of the self-cleaning sensor in the environment it's designed to work in you would have to run a "test" for a year+. Leave a lens on a Rebel XT (350D) and on a Rebel XTi (400D) and turn them both on and off once a week for a year. The XTi is going to be basically spot free and the XT is going to be dusty.

[RdRacer301]

After taking a look at both brands at BestBuy, I took the dive on Rebel (400D) XTi. Should have it in a few days along with Canon 18-55mm kit lens and other basic goodies to get me started.

Thanks for all the great advice, guys.

[Ben]

Awesome! Congrats!