Sensor dust circled in red.

If you shoot a DSLR, it’s only a matter of time until you get some dust on your camera’s sensor. There are numerous ways to clean your DSLR sensor; I’ve tried several methods, and the one I like this best, is the Pentax Sensor Cleaner that was recommended to me by the good people at The Camera Store.

The Pentax Sensor Cleaner is basically a plastic stick or wand with a piece of sticky rubber at one end and it comes with a little booklet of sticky sheets that are used to clean the Sensor Cleaner itself. The kit will last you for dozens of sensor cleanings and is relatively inexpensive.

Pentax Sensor Cleaner

Another great tool that I find indispensable for sensor cleaning, is the Sensor Loupe from VisibleDust.

Sensor Loupe and the Pentax Sensor Cleaner

The procedure:

1. Clean the rubber tip of the Pentax Sensor Cleaner by dabbing it a couple times on a clean area of the sticky pad. Just go straight up and down. Never rub the wand side to side.

Set the Sensor Cleaner aside carefully making sure that the rubber end doesn’t touch anything.

2 . Insert a freshly charged battery in to your camera and activate the manual cleaning mode.

3. Using the sensor loupe, look at the sensor and make a mental map of all of the locations of the specks of dust.

4. Now using your mental map as a guide, dab the sensor with the rubber end of the Pentax Sensor Cleaner. Remember; just go straight up and down. Never rub the wand side to side.

5. Using the sensor loupe again, have another look at the sensor, and to see if any specks of dust remain.6. If any dust remains, clean your Sensor Cleaner wand on the sticky sheet, and dab the sensor like you did before.

7. Repeat this process until all of the dust is gone. It usually takes me anywhere from 2 -4 tries to get the sensor completely clean, and a total of maybe 5 minutes max.

That’s all there is to it. This method works extremely well on loose, dry dust. If you have baked on dust or oil/grease on the sensor, this method will probably not work. If that’s that case, I recommend a wet cleaning method such as Sensor Swabs and Eclipse2 solution, but for 99% of my sensor cleaning needs the method outlined above works like a dream.

*Note: Please be sure to read and understand the instruction booklet that comes with the Pentax Cleaner and never rub the wand on your sensor side to side. This can cause a huge mess (streaks on the sensor) that will take a lot of time and effort to clean.