Dust

Dust is in various ways a problem for photographers. Back in the old darkroom days cleaning negatives well could save hours of work spotting your black and white prints, and if you had dust on the film in the camera it would give black spots that were even tricker to remove. Sometimes it was possible to bleach them out on the wet print, or you could physically remove them with a scalpel from the finished print, and both were pretty tricky.

Dust is a problem when scanning negatives and slides too, and glassless carriers which took away much of the problem in the darkroom don’t seem to be made as well for scanners as for the best enlargers.  You soon get into a routine of using a ‘Rocket’ or other powerful air blower on every surface before each scan. But the good thing about scanning is that it becomes relatively easy to retouch the scans and remove black and white spots as well as scratches etc.

Digital images, at least those from cameras with interchangeable lenses, tend to suffer from dust too.  I give the rear of all my lenses and the mirror chamber a good blast with the Rocket at least once a week before going out to take pictures, and then lock up the mirror to give the sensor the Rocket treatment.

Having replaced the lens I turn the camera off to bring the mirror down, then on again so I can finally use the camera’s built-in dust removal. It is perhaps more a ritual than effective cleaning, but it does appear to keep problems at a minimum.

Even so, there does tend to be a build-up of dirt on the sensor, although it fortunately is seldom very noticeable in the images. It usually only shows up badly in even areas such as skies, and Lightroom or other software has the tools to make short work of it.

Dust did seem to be much more of a problem with earlier DSLRs. I remember having to swab off my sensor perhaps monthly with the D100 and D70, while I can’t remember ever having done it with the D700.

But what brings dust to my mind today is not cameras but computers. I switched my main machine on late on Tuesday, but it wouldn’t start. Today the computer engineer told me that dust had been the problem, as he took the box away for a motherboard replacement and general sprucing up.

It is around five years old, so time for something new, and I already have a high-spec replacement machine on order, intending to keep this as a backup. But it is a very considerable inconvenience having to re-install software and after I get the new sytems I’ll have days of work to get back to normal running.   Fortunately most of my important files are backed up, and I hope I will lose very little.

I could have saved much of this by regular dust removal from inside my computer, opening the case and carefully cleaning out the dust from it. The large fan over the processor had become clogged up with dust, though it was still spinning around it was no longer doing it’s job at cooling the processor.

One of the things that I’m currently without is my diary, but once I get computers back to normal, one thing I’ll be sure to add – and with an annoying reminder to make sure I notice it – is a task that recurs every six months, to dust my computer.

I’m typing this on a notebook computer with little or no dust problem so far as I’m aware, though a slightly cramped and unresposive keyboard. I’d hoped to get back to more regular posting this week both here and on My London Diary after a very busy time over the past few months, but my dust problems have put paid to that for the moment.

4 Responses to “Dust”

  1. Yes , I wonder if thats my problem. I have a 2005 dual core Mac G5 , which won’t start up, it looks like a power supply problem to me, are you using Mac Peter and if so can you recommend anyone?

  2. Hi John,

    No, I started on Amstrad and IBM and have kept on that side.

    My power supply had gone, but replacing it we found the m/b was the real problem. With a computer 5 years old it didn’t seem worth spending too much time, so I’m keeping all the useful bits – several cards, hard drives, nice case, the memory if it tests 100% and having a new m/b, graphics card, upgraded optical drives etc.

    Not sure how much you can do with Macs, but putting in a new power supply should be easy – I’ve done it myself for PCs in the past.

    Does anyone else know a good place for Mac repairs in the Greater London area for John?

  3. onemoreroll says:

    I use xelec for mac repairs. (xelec.co.uk). They’re in Tooting/Wandsworth/Southfields area.

  4. I hope that’s useful for John, thanks

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.