Help - Mark on pictures

[Hixle]

Now I'm no good with the technical side of things so you'll have to be patient with me

See the little mark?

I initially thought it was something on the lens so gave it a wipe, but no, it's appearing when I use my other lens too.

The camera's a D40 if that's any use.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Luke

 

[Ian]

I'm not clued up either, but I presume it'll be dust on the camera sensor or whatever. I say that as I know the 450d has a sensor cleaning function.

 

[GaryS]

Dust/dirt on sensor. Solution: clean it!

 

[Paul_G]

Yep, likely to be dust on the sensor. Best thing to try first is to use rocket blower on the sensor - most of the time this is all that is needed.

 

[dunganick]

as said its most likely to be dust on sensor, to test theory, change lenses if it stays (make it show up by using high f numbers with a bright/plane colour background)

If it does then try a rocket blower, although in my experiance these dont do much good. The best solution is to learn to clean your sensor, its scary the first few times.

Best thing is to be shown by an experianced person and make sure you have a fully charged battery.

Or take it to a shop and get charged for it.



To avoid lumps like the above, make sure lenses are swapped quickly, with the body facing down so dirt cant fall in it. Make sure you keep lense caps on all your lenses when not in use, as any dirt on the conection end of the lense can fall off and will just float around inside your camera untill it find the sensor.


Edit: Just noticed you already swapped lenses.

 

[Andy.]

Why the need for the fully charged battery?

 

[Paul_G]

When the power goes the mirror resets itself - i.e. back in front of the sensor, if you're still working on the sensor and the battery dies, you're likely to damage the sensor and / or the mirror.....so nice full battery to make sure the mirror stays up!

 

[Andy.]

Makes sense... had not thought about that side of it! Cheers.

 

[ukaskew]

Definitely something on the sensor, the good news is it looks pretty big so probably a hair rather than dust...which should make it much easier to get rid of.

 

[Hixle]

Cheers all, sorted now

Used a rocket blower on the sensor in the end, and as ukaskew correctly guessed it was a big old bit of dirt which shifted easily enough.

Ta again,

Luke