The International Leica Society has posted a video of a camera sensor being cleaned at the Leica service centre in the Wetzlar factory in Germany. The video, taken by member Hari Subramanyam on his iPhone, shows the process of checking for dust on the sensor of his M (Typ 240) and then its removal.

Well, that was what it was supposed to show, but after 20 minutes and 25 seconds the video finishes with the dust victorious and the Leica service engineer frustrated and wishing he wasn’t being recorded.

The engineer starts by cleaning the mount of the camera before using a vacuum cleaner to suck dust and debris from the shutter blades. Once that is done the in-camera dust checking function is used to detect a number of dust spots. The rubber-on-a-stick Pentax Sensor Cleaning kit is used to remove the dust as the engineer explains the process needs patience and can take anything from ten minutes to an hour.

We don’t get to see the sensor finally dust-free, as it takes a few goes and the cameraman has less patience than the engineer, but the video shows some useful steps in the process.

2019-1-12 16:35