K10D cleaning the sensor

[wjgibson]

I posted some photos over on photo.net from an outing yesterday to a nearby trail, the Matchedash Bay Trail and some views not fra from there of the Coldatwer River.  This is Ontario about 100 miles north of Toronto.  Matchedash Bay and wetlands drain into the east end of Georgian Bay which is the east end of Lake Huron.   

see http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=937877

Someon on the Pentax forum over there read my post and took a look at the shots and detected what he suggested were spots from either dirt on th elens or dust on the sensor or both.  I pulled out my manual and followed the directions for shaking the dust and cleaning the sensor.  First time I have done this and it was quite easy.

Now my eyesight is getting alittle wonky, so I  could not see any evidence in the shots. He suggested the blue skies of the Coldwater River shots.  I will try to post a link here so you can see one of those.  But see if you can see any eivdence in the folder shots of dirt dust.

thanks

[wjgibson]

hmm I must be having a better eye day today, I can see a dark circular shadow in the linked shot in the blue sky over to ther left corner.

[Kin Lau]

I see two dust spots, one where you indicated on the left, and another on the right just before the tree. You may need to take a sensor swab to it if it was something sticky like pollen.

[Graham Serretta]

The sensor cleaning mechanism of the K10D is inefectual and won't remove pollen or stubborn dust.  If you want to see how dirty your sensor is, take a shot of a clear blue sky, or a white card, with the lens set to infinity focus (focus manually) and the aperture set to at least f16 (use aperture priority, and if the required shutter speed is fairly long, don't worry - move the camera around during the exposure to make sure that you don't record any detail.  Open the image in Photoshop, and increase the contrast to maximum.  Adjust the brightness as required, and any dust spots will be plainly visible.

To clean, see this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67vLGotCFd0

Good luck.