I took a night shot with the new VR 70-200 last night and noticed what looked to be a large amount of dust in the shot, as can be seen across just above the centre - it looks to be red and green lumps around the third turret from the left. Technically, it should never ever look like that - it should be the odd dot here and there, and hardly noticable unless you're taking long exposures of something bright.

I called my friendly local camera shop who told me it'd be about 45 quid and take at least 24 hours.

So I set about doing it myself. The D100 requires you to have a separate power supply, which enables a menu function to move the mirror and the curtain, thus allowing access to the CCD. The other way of doing it (as I did) is to set a 30 second exposure, whip the lens off, and the clean it that way.
After some hit and miss, I found the solution of putting a anti-static wipe wrapped around the end of a pencil (rubber band holding it in place), then gently dabbing at the CCD worked wonders. Ok, it took me about 90 minutes to get it perfect, but I'm pleased with the results.

After I'd done a sweep, I'd take a 2 second exposure of a bright white (gloss) door at ISO3200, with the lens pulled to infinity focus. This made any dust spots stand out like a sore thumb as they'd appear as black on white.
It's a real pain of a job, and hugely boring. I'm glad I've done it, but I'm not looking forward to having to do it again any time soon.

shadyron | General, Photography | 10 January, 12:34pm

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