Customer Reviews

Delkin Devices DDSS-SCOPE2 Complete Digital SLR SensorScope Cleaning System

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm one of those people who can never get a window clean. I was pretty nervous about cleaning the most important part on my window on life - my digital SLR. Still, I don't have $50 to spend on each cleaning it needs so my options were limited. The scope was great for making sure my sensor needed cleaning (as if the blotches on my photos weren't evidence enough). The swabs were easy to use, then the scope to make sure I'd done the job correctly. The instructions were a breeze and very clear. Now my pictures are clear too!

I, like many photographers today, have had to deal with the one drawback of DSLRs versus the traditional (and increasingly old fashioned by today's standards) film cameras.... that being dust on the sensor. In a film camera, you could open the camera back, wipe down the pressure back-plate with some lens cleaning tissue and cleaning fluid, and blow off dust pretty easily and you were good to go. Today, however, CCD sensors attract dust and can even have some particles bond with the surface so it can't be easily blown away. These dust particles manifest themselves on your digital photos against a uniform color area as a spot, or blurry area. These can vary from being slightly annoying, to being much more than that, depending on where they are and how large the particle is.

Now, just how does one deal with this problem in today's cameras? Well, today's DSLRs have cleaning modes on them, and, very often, upon turning the camera on, or off, cause the CCD sensor to go thru a cleaning cycle of vibrating and/or charging it. This is done in hopes of dislodging any dust particles. Great idea, but, unfortunately, not 100 percent effective. So, what is one to do? Well, you can bring the camera in for a cleaning, and pay the often rather high cost of that service. You can try blowing the dust off with a hand held pump bulb, or, you can use this kit.

This kit is AMAZING! The lit magnifying scope lets you really see every part of the sensor clearly, and easily showing every single spec that is on the sensor plate. The illumination from the built-in LEDs makes sure you can see even the smallest of particles. The kit also includes a vacuum unit that is powered off of either a USB port on a computer, or with a USB connected battery pack, which is included. The battery pack uses 4 AA batteries, and is of compact design with a long enough cord to make use of it very convenient. The vacuum is powerful enough to easily get most dust particles off unless they have electrically bonded with the CCD sensor. I was able to remove 80% of the dust particles on my sensor by non-contact vacuuming with this, and up to 95% by using the brush tip on the vacuum. So, what about the other 5%? Glad you asked! Okay, you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. The most stubborn particles have to be removed by actually using a cleaning fluid and wand, both of which are included in the kit as well. The solution is applied to the applicator wand tip (which comes in different sizes for different sensor sizes) and you wipe along the sensor to dislodge and de-bond the dust from the CCD sensor plate. Then you switch ends of the wand to wipe the sensor dry. This operation is easy, and left my sensor absolutely clean. I had several larger dust particles that had refused to be vacuumed up, yet the fluid and applicator wands easily took care of them. Topping all this off is the fact that this kit comes in a nice carry case to keep everything organized, and clean.

Just how cost-effective is it? Well, sending your camera off to the manufacturer, or a service center, for most good DSLRs can run over $200, and usually in the $250 range for a cleaning. Sometimes it's even higher than that. Doing the cleaning locally thru a repair center may be less expensive, but think about the time lost without your camera, and if you don't have a spare camera, and are a professional, that's more money lost than just the cost of the cleaning if you need your camera but don't have it. With this kit you can clean it yourself, and be operational in anywhere from just a few minutes, to up to 20 minutes or so. Using this kit jut once is enough to let it pay for itself. The directions that come with it are excellent, and the quality of the equipment is top notch. You can even use it to clean your camera lenses.

I am very glad I bought this kit! It's already saved me more than double it's cost in just one use!

I would like to say, if you have a DSLR, take some basic precautions to keep from getting dust and dirt on your sensor. Eventually you'll get dust on your sensor, without a doubt, but to help minimize the risk, always tilt your camera body down and change/remove your camera lenses while keeping the camera shielded as much from wind as possible. This basic trick should greatly help keep your sensor from getting more dust on it than it otherwise could.

I highly recommend this cleaning kit. In fact, I now consider this kit as essential to have as the batteries for my camera too!

The product I have must have been from the first 2 versions in which heat was used to seal the edges of the swabs which leaves a sharp edge on the swab damaging sensors. The fluid with the kit is slow drying which leaves a film that is difficult to remove. The vacuum brush is too brittle and causes marring of the sensor. The vacuum is not powerful enough to remove larger pieces of dust leaving the stiff brush to smear the dust particles into the sensor coating. I have had 2 expensive sensor repairs caused from using this product. Delkin remains unaccountable for a bad product - it has refused any type of compensation. Use this product with extreme caution.

The reviews here on Amazon were pretty good so I went ahead and ordered this cleaning kit hoping to save a few hundred bucks over the Visible dust brand. Past experience has told me not to but it's been awhile since I've bargain shopped for photography gear. This kit is case and point of why you should just pony up the dough if you're a serious photographer and not try to pinch pennies. I honestly can't ship this thing back fast enough. Let's start with the good: The packaging is nice, I like the case and you get a generous amount of sensor swabs with the kit. I suppose in retrospect that could warrant 1 star. However, the "Sensor Scope" seemed to make it more difficult to see my sensor than just looking at it with the naked eye. That goes for both full frame and cropped sensor camera bodies(both Nikons.) The focus point is about 1/8 too shallow to see the sensor and there is no adjustment. It also lacked the "pressure switch" the Delkin web page touts and instead has this clumsy protruding button that feels like it's going to break the first time you try to turn on the LEDs.

And speaking of clumsy protruding buttons...The vacuum (which was missing the brush attachment rendering it dangerous to put anywhere near your sensor and is ironically the only thing that didn't suck in this kit) literally broke the first time I pushed the button. It slid to the side and got stuck under the housing and I couldn't get the button back to its original position to shut it off. At that point I boxed it back up. I usually give products a second try and I was willing to call Delkin and ask them to send me the brush attachment. One failure after another is instead getting them a returned (broken) item and bad review. I didn't try the cleaning solution or the swabs because I'm frankly afraid of what it could do to my cameras.

I've been holding out on doing this for a while, but with the UFOs getting out of control on my sensors I decided to go for it. The kit is pretty straight forward and easy to use although the vacum is kind of useless since it's not strong enough to really suck any dust up. The swabs though worked pretty well and I didn't damage anything so I guess it worked. I though about doing this for a while and after asking some friends, I decided that the 'tech' I might have sent it in to probably isn't all that much of an expert anyway and is probably using something similar to do the work. So, for the money of buying the kit, I'll be able to do the job myself several times so it should pay for it self a few times over.

At the time I bought this, there were six reviews. Two were one-star, and the other four were five-star. I decided to take my chances with the good reviews, but I can't say it was a very wise decision. I did find the scope to be pretty useful, but the rest of the kit was mediocre at best.

Sensor Scope - This part of the kit I found fairly helpful. It isn't without flaw, sometimes it can be difficult to see parts of the sensor. By and large, though, the magnification and light helped see all the dirt as far as I can tell.

Sensor Vac - This was the big selling point for me, I have used a blower, but since it circulates the dirt without containing it, a vacuum was the logical answer. I still think it could be, in fact; just not with this particular vacuum. I did get some use out of it, cleaning the chamber. The bristles worked loose the dirt trapped in the fibers lining it, and I guess the vacuum must've pulled something in, since I had a net gain in cleanliness of the chamber itself. Using it on the sensor was very different. I couldn't see as it picked up anything without contact, so I tried again with the dabbing they suggested. Once again, I couldn't see as it really did much, if anything. This part of the kit was a major disappointment.

Swabs - I wasn't too happy with these, either. I like the design, it was less bulky than the other wand I have. The pad was very poor, however. I could see a lot of lint on the pads, and much of it ended up on the sensor as I cleaned. Basically, this part of the kit is completely useless, since any cleaning you do is completely negated by the lint's spots. I saw something about swabbing wet and dry in the book; and I was concerned it might scratch the sensor dry, so I only swabbed wet (the lint was left with the pad moist, in other words). In addition to that major complaint, I could only use one size of swab going the length of the sensor, the smallest. The medium swabs were slightly over-sized for use on my camera's APS-C sized sensor.

Solution - I didn't actually use any of this, I felt more comfortable with the Eclipse solution I already had.

In summary, I like the Sensor Scope, but the kit does not have enough value otherwise that I would be willing to buy this again, nor recommend this kit to anyone.

This does everything it's made to do. I would give it a 5 star rating, but there are some spots that it doesn't seem to fix on my d700 sensor. They could be from previous cleaning attempts and they are only noticable when I shoot at f/22 and above though.

After two different people at camera stores could not see any gunk on my sensor (and therefore, did not clean it completely), a third person using the Delkin Scope/System did so within moments.

The price of this system is within my budget as the other more famous brand is not. This all happened within the past few days, so I have not yet bought it for myself. But, you can bet that it's next on my Buy-It List!

Cleaning your sensor is now a safe procedure done under magnification, first you can remove MOST of the debris with the vacuum unit, cleverly issued witha USB plug (there is also a battery pack for 4 AA batteries that you can use in the field) If that is not enough, then the sensor cleaning solution and the cleaning sticks will get the rest of stuff out of the way...one word of advice, clean the magnifying self illuminated scope as some tiny fabric threads on its surface can give you the impression that they are sitting on your sensor surface..happy shooting!