As the title says, I found a recurring smudge in my photos when I was editing this one. You can see the smudge in the middle of the photo.

At first I thought it was on the outside of the lens, so I cleaned it off. Still there.

I ran the “clean image sensor” program on the camera. Still there.

So I detached the lens from my camera body and when looking through it with the aperture wide open, I could see the particle that was causing the smudges.

I then took a photo of a white wall with the flash on at the widest aperture setting I could (f/36) which I will be posting at the bottom of this post body. There the middle smudge and a smaller smudge in the lower left can be seen.

Is there anything I can do to resolve this? I can see there are 3 screws at the camera side of the lens that I might be able to unscrew, but I have no idea what’s inside or how complex it would be to pick apart. It wouldn’t surprise me if I just introduced more dirt by opening it up.

The smudge is very visible at any aperture setting greater than about f/6.

I appreciate any feedback.

Photo of a white wall:

  • hankeOP
    7·
    10 months ago

    Yeah, you were all right. I just managed to get to my sensor for real this time and can see the spec of dust on there. Previously I think I was just looking at the mirror… Does it show that I’m a newbie? haha.

    Well, I tried to blow the dust spec away with a blower thingy, but that didn’t work. Considered using compressed air, but the internet said not to. So now I’ve ordered a sensor cleaning kit.

    Thank you all for your help.

    @randombullet@feddit.de @IMALlama@lemmy.world @Zip2@feddit.uk @superkret@feddit.de @falkerie71@sh.itjust.works @Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de

    • IMALlama@lemmy.world
      1·
      10 months ago

      Glad you got to the bottom of it! Good luck cleaning the sensor. Patience will get it done.

    • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      10 months ago

      Happy to hear you found the problem

      After a hike I noticed some weirdness when taking pictures, turns out when I swapped lenses on the hike I trapped a mosquito between the lens and the sensor

      Good news is it just fell out when I tipped the camera

      Bad news is now I’m paranoid about there still being bits in there