How do I clean the spots off the inside of my lens? Cleaning the outside of the lens does not remove the spots that appear on the photos. Do I have to send the camera to Sony to open the lens to clean it?
Succesfully used my vacuum cleaner for a few seconds, over the opened lens.
I have done this, and I would like to add some suggestions for the P100 procedure as described in: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=19895748 1) Decide if you want to leave the battery in. Pro: Lets you check your work before you re-assemble. Con: Do not press the power button while you are working on it or the lens will pop out and upset your work. 2) The LCD disengages from the left side first, looking at the back of the camera. Use a tiny flat blade screwdriver in the latch hole to pop the latch. The smallest of force is required. If you are muscling it, stop before you break soemthing. 3) The metal plate disengages from the bottom first. Use two small flat blades, one to disengage the latch, the other to lift the plate. This may be difficult due to some adhesive on the mylar circuit to the left of the latch. Lift the latch and rotate it slightly clockwise to unhook the top right tang. Remove. 4) After cleaning, put the last two screws back (CCD Screws), power the camera on, and set zoom to 3X. Point the camera at a white card and check the LCD display? Dots gone? No, then open the CCD and blow some more with the bike pump. 5) DO NOT TOUCH THE OBJECTIVE LENS or THE CCD Surface. 6) Remember to carefully position the packing over the objective before you re-assemble. Push it, do not drag it. This reduces the probability that you will scratch the objective with the pusher (screwdriver). 7) Perfectionist will want to wear surgical gloves to prevent fingerprints on the metal plate etc. Overall I rate this procedure "minor technical competence required". Go slow and work carefully and you might be surprised how easy it is to do. The result is definitely worth the effort. I did notice a lot of dust particles trapped between variuos layers of the lenses by using a flashlight on the objective from the CCD side. They do not seem to impair the image, other that very vauge and light shadows which appear to be swamped by any image except possibly blue sky. Note to Sony: A rubber seal would have gone a long way here. What the heck were you thinking?
Also, try this BEFORE you do the dissasembly, it may work and save you dissasembly...
Several people report that it cleared the problem with no dissasembly. On person used a shop-Vac
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.a...
Disreagrd the previous notes, they have some errors regarding direction of rotation and position of the LCD latch.
Try this BEFORE you disassemble:
Several people report that it cleared the problem with no disassembly. One person used a shop-vac
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.a...
OK, so that didn't work? Then do this:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.a...
Notes:
Tools required:
1 Phillips 00
1 Tiny teeny flat blade
1 Tiny flat blade
1 Basketball Pump
1 Basketball inflation needle with the end open or cut off so that it is open
1 Pair Surgical Gloves
1 Flashlight
1 Pair reading glasses if you cannot look a close objects
1) Decide if you want to leave the battery in.
Pro: Lets you check your work before you re-assemble.
Con: Do not press the power button while you are working on it or the lens will pop out and upset your work.
2) The LCD disengages from the right side first, looking at the back of the camera. Use a tiny flat blade screwdriver in the latch hole to pop the latch. The smallest of force is required. If you are muscling it, stop before you break something.
3) The metal plate disengages from the bottom latch first. Use two small flat blades, one to disengage the latch, the other to lift the plate. This may be difficult due to some adhesive on the Mylar circuit to the left of the latch. Tease the adhesive down off the plate with a tiny flat blade screwdriver. Take care not to damage the Mylar circuit. Once the adhesive is dealt with, lift the plate and rotate it slightly counter-clockwise to unhook the top right tang. Remove plate to the right on top of the now displaced LCD display.
4) After cleaning, put the last two screws back (CCD Screws), power the camera on, and set zoom to 3X. Point the camera at a white card and check the LCD display. Dots gone? No, then open the CCD and blow some more with the bike pump.
5) DO NOT TOUCH THE OBJECTIVE LENS or THE CCD Surface with anything except perhaps a blow bulb brush.
6) Remember to carefully position the packing insert (little black rubber rectangle with a rectangular hole in the middle) over the objective before you re-assemble. Push it, do not drag it. This reduces the probability that you will scratch the objective with the pusher (screwdriver).
7) Perfectionists will want to wear surgical gloves to prevent fingerprints on the metal plate etc.
8) The metal plate screws appear to have loc-tite on them. Press down hard and apply torque (CCW of course) to undo them. CCD screws also harder to remove the first time.
Overall I rate this procedure "minor technical competence required". Go slow and work carefully and you might be surprised how easy it is to do.
The result is definitely worth the effort. This is a great camera and I also have an underwater case for it, so I am glad to be able to restore it to proper service.
I did notice a lot of dust particles trapped between various layers of the lenses by using a flashlight on the objective from the CCD side. They do not seem to impair the image, other than very vague and very light shadows which appear to be swamped by any image except possibly blue sky.
Note to Sony: A proper dust seal would have gone a long way here. What the heck were you thinking? At least you could acknowledge the problem and offer a reasonably priced subsidized repair service. We should get something back for paying double the amount for the same size copy crippled memory sticks as Canon's. Shame on you Sony for not acknowledging this problem (see other posts).
ICEMAN
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Ooops, that was P200. Here is P100: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=19895748
At your own risk, you can take your camera apart and remove the dust from the CCD. Try to do this in a place where ther is no dust. A clean room would be ideal of course. Here is how someone else did it... http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=18038181
Yup! There is no other way At least if it is a young camera they will do it free. But more importantly do the spots show in your images? Air bubbles and spots on lens elements do not as a rule show because the lens is not photoing its own innards so to speak.
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Thank you for confirming that my only solution is to send the camera to Sony to be cleaned. The spots show on the upper half of my images. Since the camera is at least a few years old, I doubt if Sony would fix it for free. Do you think it's worth it to send it back to Sony, or should I just buy a new camera?
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