Sweet sweet pollen on my sensor...

Within two weeks of using the D700 I managed to get dust onto it's sensor that the camera's built-in cleaning feature couldn't remove (I configured it to clean whenever I turn on the camera). It was some small particles that simply stuck on the surface and wouldn't go away. Hooray! Time for another episode of my ongoing series of sensor cleaning experiences. :-P

So, I tried to clean that D700's sensor with the Arctic Butterfly thing that I bought (the amount of money that I spent for a cheap battery-operated nylon brush is still scary!), and it only got worse - the small "dots" that I could see turned into a smear trail. Hooray²!

So it was time for a wet cleaning of the sensor - only two weeks after I bought the camera! Yikes. I blame spring. It must be pollen that got into the camera's mirror chamber when I was robbing on the ground, hunting them macros. After my emergency wet cleaning back then in the US (cotton swabs & very pure alcohol), I've been looking for a good and easily usable solution for wet cleaning (and one that would be no problem to carry in the hand luggage on a plane, too), and I think I found it in the "Green Clean" sensor cleaning packs (link goes to Amazon US and opens in a new window/tab just like all external links here should).

I like this stuff because it's very quick & simple to use. It consists of a wet sensor swab that is already impregnated with the cleaning fluid. One or two swipes over the sensor removes all greasy dirt for me (tried it with both the Fuji and the Nikon already), the dry swab is for "toweling" the sensor and removing the residue of the cleaning fluid. No fiddling with extra cleaning fluid and stuff. Rip the stuff open, put the mirror in inspection position, clean the sensor, all done in a couple of minutes. Note: the toweling part is more important than you think. Do it right, or you waste another set. Like I did. :-P