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Hello everybody,

after 6 months of heavy use and minimal maintenance, my Rebel Xsi now needs some cleaning. I worked the outer body with a brush and soft cloth but I'm not sure what to do with the mirror and mount. AFAIK you can use air cleaning tools or special pens (found one with the funny name "Speckgrabber") but I also heard that you can easily make things worse by leaving scratches on the mirror, moving dust even deeper into the body or even damage something.

What are your experiences here, what advice would you give me?

Funny - I tried to search the board first, but a search on "cleaning" returned me, that it was a too common word

Betty

Hi Betty, and welcome.

I do hope that that's Veuve in the glass that we see in your avatar.

For this task, I wouldn't be too concerned with using a good quality soft brush on the mirror. Neither your mirror nor your focusing screen are a part of your image path; any action that you take only affects what you see through the viewfinder, rather than any images that you may make with the camera.

Basically, I would steer well away from canned air type of products, but would tend to use a large blower, like the Giotto Rocket. Canned air products will contain propellants of some sort, and these would not be what you want anywhere within your mirror box. If you're using brushes of any sort, be aware that brushes made with natural fur are likely to contain (and deposit) oil from the animal from which they have been sourced. Not the most desirable outcome.

With the lens removed, hold the camera above your head with the exposed mirror box facing downwards. Use your blower and give it a few good puffs in various parts of the mirror box. Let gravity help you to remove any dislodged particles.

The special cleaning tools should be reserved for your sensor, and again, they should be confined to just a minimal set of known, proven and reliable tools. First option: use the in-built dust removal system if your camera is so equipped. Option two is to open your camera's shutter and use the method I've described above with a blower (use only one designated for photography, as others may contain talc or other substances which might contaminate the innards of your camera) to blow any dust off your sensor. Finally, use a wet cleaning method (Eclipse fluid and Pec Pads) for the really ugly dust particles.

What Gary says...

I would add that if you have a sturdy tripod, you can use that to hold the camera with the mirror box facing down at an angle which then frees up both hands for the cleaning process. It also reduces the risk of dropping the camera. Set the tripod to a height where it is comfortable to work with the camera.

i use the Giotto Rocket blower and a tripod on my 40d and it seems to work quite well, and has cleaned the specs of dust of my sensor (lent my camera to a trusted mate )

Another one for the Giottos Rocket! I have used it to clean mirror boxes, bottom of pentaprism/mirrors and even the sensor on my D300, my little sisters S5 Pro (which I use more than her) and Mozzie's EOS 400D.

Thanks a lot for the replies, they sure help me a lot - especially the tripod-method.

@Gary: thanks for the welcome and no, it's Moet!

bettyfly wrote:@Gary: thanks for the welcome and no, it's Moet!

Sam's Club special?