My Nikon D700 has been picking up dirt on the full frame sensor to the point that I felt I needed do do something about it. I am a little disappointed that the internal sensor cleaning action in the camera wasn't keeping this to a minimum. The sensor cleaning on my Olympus E3 was much better.
Before I tried cleaning the sensor I read a great deal about it. It is definitely a scary undertaking. Nikon recommends professional cleaning (theirs, of course) and if you screw it up, you void the warrantee. So I bought some of the recommended gear from Visible Dust ($200 worth) and awaited its arrival from B&H.
I received it on Wednesday. I got the Arctic Butterfly SD800 Pro kit, swabs for full frame sensor, and one of the recommended cleaning solutions. I think that there are three. The Arctic Butterfly is a brush that you use to get non-sticking dust off the sensor. The kit has brushes and adapters for each kind of sensor and an angled brush to clean the mirror and the prism finder. It does not come with the required AAA batteries (2), though. Pretty cheap I thought. There is more that you can buy. Cleaners for more persistent dirt, swabs for smaller sensors, and a LED sensor loupe to identify the location of the little nasties on your sensor. I just didn't want to pay over $300 for everything.
The gear comes with, shall we say, minimal instructions. In other words, none. There are four brushes that come with the Arctic Butterfly. Two are easily identifiable, but the other two are very similar and there is no way to ID them. One is a "thicker" brush for the ASC sensors and the fourth is the brush for the full frame sensor. I guessed.
There is also very meager instructions on how to put the cleaner on the pads and how to swipe the pad on the sensor. It says to put two - three drops on the pad, but where. On the edge? On the face of one side? No explanation. So I did what I was told and tried to clean the sensor. (BTW, I used the Arctic Butterfly first but the tenacious spots remained.) I put the camera on a tripod so I could have both hands free and so that the camera would not be moving around. I followed the instructions from Visible Dust and from what I had seen on line. I removed the lens, locked open the shutter and took a swipe at the sensor. I then closed the shutter, replaced the lens and took a picture of a blank wall at about f16 so I could see any spots. When I opened the image in Lightroom, I was horrified to see what looked liked horizontal craters in the image. I assumed that I had scratched the sensor with my first attempt. Fear gripped me. I could see paying for a whole new camera.
I calmed down a bit and resolved to do the procedure again. After all, if I had done damage I would be replacing the sensor or the camera anyway. So I tried again. The smears (gouges) were still there. Almost. I noticed that some of the earlier marks were gone. So, I figured (prayed) that it was something to do with my technique. So I kept at it. I started putting the cleaning solution on the edge of the swab and I switched from my right hand to my left swiping right to left this time which was more natural for me. I also became a bit more firm with the swipe. After a couple more tries the marks were all gone. (Insert big sigh of relief here.)
So I need to be more firm with the swipe and make sure the edge of the swab was coated and came in contact with the sensor. It is difficult to see what you are doing inside the camera. It's really all by feel. I still have to get smaller swabs for my D300S and, because there seems to be one persistent spot left on the sensor, a cleaner geared to more persistent dirt.
All in all, this was not a comfortable activity. But, with practice, I feel that I can do what needs to be done.