How much dust on your sensor is too much, and what does it look like?

Ashleigh Downs, Jedburgh

Brian Says… If you regularly change lenses in dusty environments, and or leave the camera with no body cap or lens fitted, you increase the chance of dust on the sensor. EOS cameras launched in the last ten years have a self-cleaning sensor that does a good job of shaking off dust before it gets stubborn. You can use the camera’s dust delete data to map the location of the dust spots, and remove them automatically using digital photo professional.

You rarely see the dust or spots themselves in photos, it’s usually the dark spot caused by light not getting to the sensor due to some object blocking it’s path. Usually dust is most visible on areas of light continuous tone, such as sky or backgrounds since it appears sharper or dark in contrast. Macro and landscape photographers using stopped down apertures are most likely to notice dust spots.

The red rings show where the dust spots were visible for this macro photo of a frog taken at a narrow aperture of f/14

If you notice dust, use your EOS camera’s dust delete data feature and remove the spots with DPP