The Dubai Chronicles

Monday, January 14, 2008

nikki's rebirth

nikki (my camera) worked very hard for a long time and she deserved to be pampered. i took my camera to a service center for sensor cleaning. i dont want to do it by myself that i might mess things up.

having spots or little strand of hair in the viewfinder of a dslr camera is somewhat irritating when taking a shot. that's normal since that doesn't affect your image. but when you have a tiny little speck in your sensor, this means trouble. you will know that your sensor is dirty when you downloaded the image and see "dark spots" in it. these spots can be seen when taken on small apertures (f8 and above). bigger apertures doesnt affect much.

before the cleanup... spots were everywhere (in white circles)

f13, 1/200sec, -0.7ev, 12mm, iso200, cloudy, large version

it cost me dhs150 upon cleaning my sensor and the viewfinder. it's a worthy price since cloning out these spots will save you precious time during post-process.

from the service center, i took some tests:

checking the spots on whites

f11, 1sec, -0.7ev, 10mm, iso200, cloudy, large version

checking for dirt on blue skies

f18, 1/125sec, -0.7ev, 10mm, iso200, cloudy, large version

if you need your camera sensors cleaned, just drop by at the grand store maktoum street, opposite emirates bank near the clock tower. (i'm not sure for non-nikon users if they'll accept for cleaning).

What other people think:

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