On advice of a colleague pro photographer I had my camera’s cleaned by Chipclean, a Dutch company run by a former Philips chip-division specialist. I’ve been cleaning my own camera’s for years but have never totally happy with the results. I managed to get everything clean up to f13 level but never really, properly clean.

Especially in underwater (macro) photography that f13 bar is problematic so I figured it was time to have it done properly and at €45 per camera (bulk, normally it’s €55) really money well spent. So, in go my old 5D2 (dirty as hell), 5D3 (acceptable) and my 1Dx (surprisingly dirty).

Posted here is my 1Dx, before and after… how is that for a result. No way on earth you are able to get it clean yourself that good. Photo is at f22 and exaggerated by auto-levelling, in normal view there’s not a spot to be seen, except for the hot pixel that I have to have mapped out next month.

Some good advice also came with this spring-cleaning; these are good things to know!
- First, most dirt is actually from you lens caps! They get a little scraping every time you put them on or off. So , besides those, one thing to keep really clean is the (metal) lens mount!
- Secondly, don’t clean it unless you know what you’re doing. Any indoor place is basically one huge dust nest. Mostly you’ll be just moving dust around which will rapidly gather back onto your chip. If you are going to it yourselves anyway: don’t use compressed air cans and don’t use wet cleaning solutions.
- Finally: do NOT use dust rockets, especially indoors!!!!! They are the worst and will only blow a huge amount of dust into all corners of your camera.

My advice, don’t save your money and look for a company that can get you results like these (you actually get warranty on the cleaning!!!!). I’ll be doing this twice a year at least, I’m dirty!