Customer Reviews

Visible Dust BriteVue Sensor Loupe 7X

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This unit is ok, but I have seen better. It does the job and the 7x magnification is great, however, I'm not sure if the sensor is 100% in focus (and it is not adjustable). It is also not an entirely tight fit on my D200. The LED's are very bright and really lights up the sensor very nicely to all corners. Any dust lights up really well and there is no guessing exactly where to clean the sensor.

The packaging is impressive with a good quality zipper bag and a soft pouch that can double up as cleaning cloth. Mine also came with a battery.

My main gripe with this unit is the fact that it picks up dust or fluff and you have to spend ages first cleaning it before it can be used. I have not once been able to clean it entirely - there are always little bits of dust left behind - magnified by itself and nicely lit also... This is not major, as you can just move the unit and if the dust that you see also move, you know it is on the unit and not the sensor. It is still a pain though and preventing an otherwise nice tool from getting 5 stars.

Pro:
- great idea, well designed, whole chamber in Canon 350D and 40D are lit up like nothing I've seem before. Great help in cleaning the sensor. (Much to my disappointment, the auto-cleaning mechanism only sounds good on paper for my 40D. I used 2 different brand new 40D out of box. Both got very visible dust within a week! This device saved me countless blue-sky shots during cleaning.

Neutral:

- made of so so material (for the price and for the purpose it serves, it's good enough though). The light switch is not smooth but functional. The plastic is far from great quality. This loupe doesn't fit "inside" the camera chamber as I thought it would. Instead it sits ontop of the lens hole. So I am free to move the loupe about to differentiate the dust on the loupe itself vs the dust on the sensor. Don't think it's difficult to tell at all. The focus is more than good enough to see all the dust.

Con:

- too many cute little things in the package: a strap, a belt lock, a nice little soft bag plus a faux leather zippered carrying bag and a piece of cleaning cloth. I would much prefer this thing made of better quality plastic instead. I tried to use it to examining my negatives without much success - the glass is not of high clarity. Using my 50mm/F1.4 in reverse gives me far better detail. So IMHO, this device is only good for the purpose it's designed for, not a do-it-all loupe as somewhere else suggested on the web.

Bottom line - great for what it is but not much more. At $90, it's not exactly cheap. But for all the DSLRs out there today, dust spot is a nuisance you can't avoid. And this device is a heaven-send! This really serves a vital function. For myself, it cuts my cleaning time to maybe 1/10th, leaving all the guess work behind! (A side note, I used to hate the dust spots on DSLRs, then I realized this is nothing comparing to touch up old film negatives of their wear-and-tear. So life is good after all)

P.S.
The on/off switch works funny now only after 1 hour use - it doesn't turn on the light at on position, only when I press on the switch area does the light turns on. Move my finger away, the light goes off. The ON button did turn on the lights and stay on initially. Then it stopped doing that. I tried a few tricks, no improvement. The touch-and-hold-to-switch-on button still works fine for me. But it raise the question about its longevity. Guess in the camera accessory world, $89 is considered cheap? Just hope I'll find a better production to replace this one when the day comes. If I can change the rating, I'll give it a 4 stars instead 5 for its questionable overall quality.

I've had good results using this loupe for sensor cleaning. The lights really do highlight the specks of whatever on your camera's sensor.

It is not designed to fit tightly to your camera body like some other sensor loupes do. In fact, it works better because you can slide it around which sometimes makes tiny specks show up better as the lighting angle changes.

Comes with a nice storage case and microfiber cloth to clean the loupe lens. Yes, it will collect dust as most plastics do, but if you have a good air cleaner like the Giottos AA1900 Large Rocket Blaster and the cloth, it's quick to clean before use.

Yes, it's expensive, like most camera accessories. This loupe's not vital to a good sensor cleaning, but it makes the job go much quicker and probably with better results. Depends on how much time to want to spend cleaning your sensor, I guess.

I use this loupe with the Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly Brite 724 Kit and the aformentioned Giottos AA1900 Large Rocket Blaster. Sensor cleaning is quick and effective with these tools, but they won't clean off EVERY type of dust particle. Pollen grains often stick harder than other types, for example.

Wet cleaning would be the next step with sticky particles and because there is a possiblity of leaving streaks or even scratching the sensor coating, it should not be taken lightly. Fortunately, wet cleaning isn't needed as often for most shooters.

I knew that I shouldn't change lenses out in the open with dusty winds but I didn't have a choice. The auto-clean feature didn't remove any of the bazillions of particles on the sensor and the mirror was a travesty.

I could send my camera in for a free cleaning to Nikon (camera still under warranty), but I chose to clean it myself for two reasons.

1. The shipping insurance alone would cost over $75
2. Sooner or later, I'd have to clean it myself so I might as well learn how instead of paying for shipping insurance and eventually cleaning fees each time the sensor got dirty.

I read the instructions on how to clean the sensor and this loupe was frequently mentioned so I bought it.

This loupe comes with the loupe, two flat batteries and a nice case with foam insert. No extras were included that were mentioned in earlier reviews.

I checked out the sensor and sure enough, it was filthy. I used a Giotto blower (the mid-sized black one -- I should have bought the bigger one) did not noticeably remove any particles.

I used the Copperhill wet sensor cleaning method to clean the sensor. I used the loupe and could see that there were a lot of particle still left. I repeatedly used fresh swabs until the loupe showed little or no particles on the sensor.

Then I used a 105mm 2.8 macro lens at f64 and photographed the cloudless sky. There were still a bazillion particles left on the sensor.

I repeated the cleaning process and used the loupe to find big particles. Eventually the sensor had a few hundred tiny particles (at f64 with a blank background).

The loupe is useful for finding large particles which will save you many repeated clean, photograph, download to computer and inspect cycles but it will not find smaller particles -- the 7x magnification is not powerful enough.

The led lights are sufficiently bright and with the magnification I was able to see particles that I could not have seen with just a flashlight.

This is a useful tool but you will still need to confirm if your sensor is actually clean by taking photographs.

I wish I had taken a test picture when I first bought the new camera to have a baseline reference of how much dirt is on a brand-new sensor.

I generally don't bother reviewing products, especially photo products, however this one is an exception. I have a Nikon D3, which is a great camera, but the sensor is a dust magnet. I use the Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly brush and swabs to clean the sensor. They do a good job, but I generally have to do a cleaning, replace the lens, shoot an out of focus picture of a cloudless sky, and then enlarge the picture in the viewfinder to see if I got rid of all the spots. Generally, I have to go through this iteration (clean the sensor, replace the lens, shoot the out of focus picture, enlarge and inspect) several times to get rid of all the spots. With the BriteVue Sensor, I can see right away, before replacing the lens, if all of the spots are gone. It reduces the cleaning time by at least 2/3. It also allows me to see right away if I have to resort to using the swab because the brush is not doing the job. Pshaw-Photo, [...]

Finally, a little gizmo that allows visibility in the SLR chamber to clean the sensor. The LEDs provide plenty of light and the magnification allows for relatively easy detection of those little annoying dust bunnies. I was able to clean the sensor and have it dust free in less than 5 minutes simply because I didn't have to strap the lens on, shoot, download the photo, examine, and repeat a thousand times. I could see the dust particles and remove them with far more ease.

Now the bad news. There is no way to clean the dust off the sensor without removing the loupe first. This though, is a minor gripe because you get to see the result nearly right away and repeat right then and there if necessary. The bigger gripe is that there's no way to alter the focus to different depths in the chamber. If you're unlucky enough to not be able to focus on the sensor there's no recourse. Overall, this product is still an order of magnitude better than cleaning sensors the old way; by shooting after every attempt at cleaning to see results. A most worthy addition to fight sensor dust.

I bought one and I couldn't be any happier with this loupe......I can clean my sensor anytime day or night and it takes the guess work out of the loop......it's a must have especially when you have to clean your own sensor. It saves you time and it saves you the guess work in cleaning your sensor. The good old way of just swiping and hope it will clean is gone for good.....here you can actually see if there are still junks left before you conclude your cleaning....it's direct visualization and nothing beats that.....it's a must have for all DSLR owner esp those that changes lens all the time.....

I've used this tool on 5 DSLR's (Alpha 100, 200, 350, 700 and canon 20d) to clean the sensors with fantastic results. Extremely bright led lights coupled with 7x magnification allows me to find all the spots and get them cleaned up. Using this saved me from sending 3 cameras in for sensor cleaning after a recent trip so it has paid for itself already. $80 may seem like a lot to some of us (me included) but it is worth the expenditure. When you decide to get one wait until it is "on sale" for 79.99 instead of the regular price of 89.99. I watched the price bounce between the 2 prices almost daily from Adorama

The Sensor Loupe works great. The magnification is excellent and lets you see even the smallest dust and fibers stuck on your sensor. But the price seems a bit high for a magnifying lens and a few LEDs.

This tool will go with me on every shoot. Being able to really see the sensor, and see particulate matter really makes cleaning an easy job, rather than trial and error (Clean--test sensor at high F stop--clean--retest...)

This has really saved me time!!!