Making sure your sensor is clean just got a whole lot easier!
When I first heard about Delkin’s SensorScope, I have to admit I wondered if such a device would be of any use. Well, I received one today, in fact, I received the whole cleaning kit! The kit contains the SensorScope, a USB / battery powered (a cool USB battery is included) SensorVac which has its own light, sensor cleaning solution and swabs. You can see the kit in its case pictured above. There is a 2nd photo above, in the left corner is the SensorScope in action. What you’re seeing in the SensorScope is the CCD’s bayer array lit up and magnified 5x. Yeah, this thing works so well you can see that!
To use the SensorScope, you want to have it right up to your eye, otherwise you’ll see what you see in the photo above. Now, with your eye right to the scope, what do you see? You do see microscopic dust particles, no problem. With a trained eye, you could see them without the scope the problem is, very few have that eye. I wanted to put the SensorScope to a real hard test, would it permit us to see a smear on the CCD caused by our own bad cleaning? I sacrificed one of my old collection D1 bodies’ sensor for the test. I made a bad smear on the sensor; than went and cleaned it. Looking with the naked eye, I could not see any residue left on the CCD. I then put the SensorScope on the camera and low and behold, there was a smear on the CCD I would have missed if I had not used the SensorScope. That proved it to me. I have to have one in my cleaning kit from now on.
No, they are not inexpensive. But compared to loosing detail in a file because of a smear or piece of dust on a key content detail, they are more than worth their price. The SensorScope is a tool you should have in your bag! They are already on backorder, but you can get yours here.
With the ever growing popularity of pros using DigitalPro 4.0, we keep receiving requests from users to see how I use DigitalPro. Written text just doesn’t seem to help so we’ve created a bunch of videos demonstrating how I use DigitalPro 4.0 everyday. I narrate the videos and try to provide as much info on the settings, short cuts and tips I use to get back out behind the camera as fast as I can using DigitalPro. One video even shows the basics of how I use Capture NX and create the images I post here on the blog. You can see the videos here.
There is one benefit to less snow, you can get to some places you normally can’t with tons of snow. Jake & I went out looking for “the rabbit” and while we found tracks, no breathing subject. But we found some great scenics in the process. Sunrise at -3 degrees was just spectacular!
Photo captured by D2X, 12-24DX on Lexar digital film, finished in CS3
I just received a Delkin ExpressCard 34 CF card reader from Delkin and man, does it fly! The outside of the box talks about transfer speeds up to 20mps and while I only got up to 14mps with my Dell M65, that’s the same speed I’m getting with the Lexar USB reader. This reader only works with 34mm and 54mm ExpressCard slots which are found on your newer Win notebooks running XP and the new Macs (which don’t have the PCMCIA slots) running 10.4x or higher. While it sticks out a bit precariously from the slot, it does a great job with Lexar’s 133x cards .
Delkin has them in stock, you can order yours direct from here.
We got some more snow today, so now we have just over a foot. Normally, this time of year would find 15+ feet of snow in the front yard. I did find some rabbit tracks first thing this AM, but they led to no wabbit. There’s always tomorrow!
Photo captured by D2H, 200f2VR on Lexar digital film, finished in CS3
