[Leica] M8 Sensor Cleaning

[hellman at comcast.net (Jesse Hellman)]

Hi,

This has been discussed before but it becomes more pertinent to us  
all as problems develop: sensor cleaning. After blobs appeared in sky  
and background I got a Giotto bulb and used it to gently blow into  
the upside down body (yes, sensor exposed). No luck. Then I tried a  
harder blast. One big blob of something that won't budge. So, I got  
out my trusty darkroom 5.5 power NPC loupe and after unscrewing it  
could see that there were other blobs as well. More Giotto, still no  
movement in the blobs.

The Giotto is new, and I squeezed it hard a few times away from the  
camera to be sure there would be nothing it would deposit on the sensor.

So, is the next step an Arctic Butterfly, and if that fails a wet  
cleaning with Visible Dust Sensor Clean using their swabs?

For Leica not to advise how to do it seems wrong. You can't send your  
camera to Solms (yes, that's what it says and I live in Maryland! New  
Jersey is a lot closer) because of a little dust.

But there seems to be nothing more fearful than the possibility of  
damaging that sensor. For instance, how strongly can you use the  
Giotto to blow the air? What is the experience with other methods?

I saw Frank suggested turning off the camera when changing lenses.  
Sounds like good advice.

thanks for any help!

Jesse