Just wanting to give my D700 a clean - am not near a Nikon repair place (am in the country) and if I take it to them have to wait 3 weeks for it be done. In meantime lots of dust and grit due to 2 years use in desert and other dusty environments and lots of lens changing without cleaning sensor properly.
Read the Arctic Butterfly site - but so expensive? Do you need all of that for D700? Would just a sensor brush do? What about blower bulb for general grit & cleaning of mirror/ viewfinder?
Would really appreciate advice.

Jan

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

I've been using the Arctic Butterfly, loupe, E2 solution and sensor swabs for a couple of years.

A good quality blower bulb (e.g., a Giottos Rocket Blower) will do a good job of blowing loose dust, grit and other debris out of the mirror box. But a blower won't dislodge welded dust, atmospheric pollution, lubricant spots and so on.

A sensor loupe containing a few LEDs will help you get a good, bright, magnified view of the surface of the sensor filter.

The Arctic Butterfly - and the rest of the system - may be expensive, but the quality is great. I've repeatedly washed the Arctic Butterfly brush in 90% isopropyl alcohol to get rid of impurities (e.g., lubricant spots, pollution from the sides of the mirror box, etc.) and put it back to brand new condition.

The E2 solution and FX/full frame-size sensor swabs work extremely well for removing welded dust, oils and other pollutants.

The idea behind the designs of most top quality sensor cleaning products is to ensure that all loose or dry-releasable particles are removed without creating any abrasion. If pollutants still remain, only then do you have to resort to a wet cleaning using a couple of drops of E2 solution on the edge of a cleaning swab.

Is it worth it (LED loupe, butterfly, solution, swabs)? Yes as far as I'm concerned.

I've seen photgraphers using a variety of home 'remedies' for sensor cleaning - everything from lens pens to microfiber cloths to compressed air cans and LCD cleaning spray. Most of the time, the sensor filter manages to survive unscathed, but every so often somebody scratches or oversaturates or scrubs too hard with one of the remedies and, well, that's that for the camera and it's off to Nikon for an expensive repair.

So my advice is to either carefully use one of the recommended popular sensor cleaning systems, or ship your camera to an authorized Nikon service center for cleaning.

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Howard Carson, Managing Editor
Kickstartnews Inc. - http://www.kickstartnews.com

I have tried using the Artic butterfly brush. My experience is that if I can't remove the dust with a blower, the brush also has a very hard time dealing with it.
I know that a number of people are using the brush and seem to be satisfied with it - but I have stopped using it due to lack of effect.

So now I do use a Giottos rocket blower to remove most of the debris - and eclipse/sensor swabs to handle the rest.

I've had mixed luck with the Arctic Butterfly. When I first got it, the brush tip wouldn't stay on when I turned on the spinner to charge the bristles. It would pop right off. They sent me a replacement tip. It stays on, but since then I've had mixed results with use. Many times I can eliminate a dust spec or two that the blower can't seem to dislodge. However, a couple times the brush has just caused smears on the sensor that required me to do a wet cleaning to eliminate. I don't know if the particles were dirty and smeared, or if the brush is picking up lubricant from near the edge of the sensor. Now when I use the brush, I very carefully touch only where I see specs. The use of a Sensor Loupe is highly recommended -- it really lets you see any problems on your sensor.

Danny
A Nikonian in North Carolina