Page 357 - Friedman Archives

Cleaning Mode 357

9.11 CLEANING MODE
Menu Position MENU  3  Cleaning Mode

What it Does Vigorously shakes the sensor in order to loosen (and
hopefully shake off) any dust particles that might have migrated behind the
fixed mirror
Recommended Setting n/a

This feature is designed to shake the sensor at ultrasonic speeds in order to
shake off dust. You may find this hard to accept since it's difficult to verify
that it's doing anything at all – you probably can't hear the vibration nor
perceive any movement when the lens is off.
Read on for more about dust, and if you ever have to clean it, activate this
feature and then clean the sensor with the camera OFF.

9.11.1 MORE ABOUT DUST
Dust particles on the sensor used to plague DSLR owners like… well, like
the plague. The good news is that your camera has that non-moveable
mirror which blocks nearly all dust that enters the mirror box from
migrating to the sensor. (The bad news is that all dust entering the mirror
box will likely end up on the mirror. That’s not nearly as bad as having it
land on the sensor, as I’ll explain below.)
What does sensor dust look like? It depends on what f/stop you’re shooting
at. If you’re shooting wide open (like at f/2.8) it hardly appears