Happy New Year everyone! Hope it's not too late to wish you guys.

I was on holiday last week with husband. We took so many photos. Back home, while photo editing, I've noticed black dark spots all over my pictures. Funny the dark sport only visible on mountain and beach photos that require small aperture setting. I've cleaned both of my lenses as best I can on the outside, and the body, as well, but they're still there. I removed my lens from the body and look through it, I cant see any spot on the mirror, so that leads me to believe they are inside my lenses. So I change to another lens but the dark particles still there and appear in same spot!!!

The dust particles appear in every image, especially when stopped down to small apertures like f/10 - f22. And I've learned that the spot comes from the camera body. I then did little internet research on this issue. And what I've found that this is a common issue among DSLR owner. It is caused by sensor dust. You might not even notice the dust particles in your images. They will only be visible at smaller apertures such as f/11 and higher. As you increase aperture to large number, the dust will appear darker and more pronounced and the size of it will also get a little smaller. That is why I don't noticed of the dark spots before because my aperture setting all the time is in between f/4.5-f/6. When it comes to shoot beach and mountain view, I've set the aperture to small so that I can get a large depth of field means that most of  the image will be in focus whether it’s close to camera or far away ( both the foreground and background are largely in focus)

I learned the hard way to not change lenses outside in the wind where things can blow in. Always turn your camera off before changing lenses to reduce static, and hold your camera in the down position so when you remove the lens any dust will fall into the lens that is much more easy to clean.

And from my internet research, I've found all these great tips!

If your camera has dust on its sensor, you can quickly spot it by doing the following:

1. Set your camera on Manual mode, f/11-f/22  (for 18mm-55mm kit lens), Adjust the shutter speed and ISO accordingly so that you don't get dark photo. Easy way is just to set camera on Aperture mode, so that your ISO and shutter speed setting will be automatically adjusted by the camera.

2. Turn off autofocus and set your lens on manual focus.
Set your aperture to the largest number (small aperture i.e f/11-f/22) available for your lens by rotating the camera dial.

3. If you are outside, point your camera up at the clear blue sky and take a picture. If you are indoors, find plain white paper, zoom in all the way so that the paper fits the whole frame, then make sure that the lens is completely out of focus and take a picture. If you are in front of a computer, open up a text editor such as Notepad, maximize it to the screen and then get as close to the monitor as possible so that only the white color is visible in the frame. Make sure that your focus is way off (completely out of focus) – that way only dust particles will be visible.

4. Zoom in on the image shot (rear camera LCD), scroll from left to right and top to bottom all over the image and see if you can find any dark spots.
If you cannot see any, your sensor is clean. If you see dark spots, then your sensor has dust on it.

Here is my DSLR test shot on a plain cloth. (Almost fainted!!)

So how to clean the dust on your sensor?  you can check HERE..

After cleaning.. few what a relief!!


My steps on how top remove sensor dust.
1. Charge the battery until full
2. Remove the lens
3. Turn on the camera and turn on "CLEANING MODE".  The camera's sensor exposed when the "CLEANING MODE / SENSOR CLEANING" function is activated. The sensor is behind the shutter. To lift the mirror and open the shutter curtains, DSLR camera manufacturers have included a special function on their cameras called "sensor cleaning /cleaning mode".
4. IGNORE THE TEMPTATION TO TOUCH THE SENSOR!!
5. Use BLOWER  to blow off the dust on the sensor. DO NOT touch the sensor glass with the blower tip. Only the air from the bulb should touch the sensor.
6. Reset back the cleaning mode to normal mode or just turn the camera off. Replace the lens and start shooting.

Now I've got extra work to do, to vanish all the dark spots on my holiday photos arghh!!!

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