Cleaning your digital camera equipment safely
A camera, like any sensitive instrument, needs care and protection for it to give you great results and to stay in optimum working condition. A digital camera needs even more care than a film based camera.
Top Tips for cleaning your digital camera
- Always carry your camera in a protective cover or bag.
- If you carry additional lenses, do ‘body-cap’ the bayonet end of the lens to prevent dust and moisture from settling on the rear element.
- Do use a UV protection filter on all your lenses. Not only will this improve the quality of your photographs, it protects the expensive elements of your lens from scratches and dust – look at it this way – even if you end up scratching the filter, your expensive lens remains safe!
- If you use a DSLR, place a body cap on the camera as soon as you remove a lens. The light sensitive sensor is right behind the mirror, and a tiny speck of dust on this sensor will multiply itself x times with enlargement of the image. Not only that, it could ruin the sensor.
- Do NOT ever touch the lens with bare hands while cleaning its surface. Do purchase a lens cleaning kit and follow the instructions precisely.
- If you have been shooting outdoors using a tripod, remember to clean the legs of the tripod before placing it in the case. Sand can be a menace to a well-oiled machine. If it creeps into the legs of your tripod, you will have difficulty extending your tripod in future. Even worse, if it finds way into your camera bag, you may ruin your lenses.
- Keep your digital camera away from water. If you do need to shoot at a beach, or on a rainy day, use a protective cover for the camera and lens. It may be a good idea to buy an underwater shooting accessory case for your digital camera.
- When not in use for an extended period of time, do remove all batteries from your camera and flash, especially if they are the use and throw variety – a battery leak can be a frustrating and avoidable menace to your camera. This can completely ruing the electronics in the camera, if the leak gets right inside the circuitry.
Respecting you camera
Always remember that a digital camera is a very sensitive machine, and needs more attention and care than a watch! If you take care of your camera, and clean your camera faithfully you will be rewarded with a long life span of the machine with great working standards and minimize opportunities of nasty surprises with the machine failing you. Apart from that, a photographer should have pride in the camera, which is of course his or her primary tool in the image making process. This is enough reason for a photographer to respect his or her camera and to go to great lengths to keep it in tip-top shape.