The hair is gone! 18th February 2018

Well, dear reader, I think this auspicious occasion needs a post of its own. I finally got rid of that hair!

I took a look on t'internet to find DSLR body/sensor cleaning.  Most all the independent camera shops around this area have closed.  Only the chains like Jessops seem to exist.  Jessops offer a sensor cleaning service from £30, however the online photographic community were somewhat scathing of the service.  I can see why, from a certain angle as you do not know the competency of the person assigned to do said cleaning.  Also, my Canon has a sensor cleaner, DIY senor cleaners are readily available and reasonably priced.

My biggest worry was that the Jessops' bod would not find the hair.  In this supposition I believe I am correct.

How did I get rid of the hair?  Well, firstly the suggestion is that you do not blow into the camera body, even though there are blowers available.  I ignored this, and blew into the camera body, but to no avail.  The next suggestion was to use something that could suck air out of the camera body.

Enter our trusty, ancient Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

Firstly I tried using a hose with an attachment with the very narrow opening. I reasoned that as it generates a lot of suction it would do the trick.  Well it did and it didn't work. The hair moved around, and actually got worse at one point, covering a large chunk of the right hand side of a photo.

I had several attempts at this; sometimes holding the camera with the lens opening facing down, sometime depressing the shutter just in case the hair was jammed near the mirror.  All to no avail.

Finally, I took off the narrow vacuum cleaner attachment, and placed the nozzle up against the camera opening CAREFULLY, trying to make a good seal. It worked! I spotted a small glint of something in the bottom left of the camera body, just above the gold contacts.

I grabbed a pair of tweezers and pulled the hair, it put up rather more resistance that I was expecting.  Boy was I in for a surprise. I thought it would be a diddy thing, about the size of an eyelash.  The thing was about 2 1/2" (6cm) long!  It was one of my grey hairs.

What I reckon happened is that when I changed lens, one of my hairs fell off my head and landed on the lens opening just above the cold contacts. When I attached the lens and rotated it, the hair was pushed into the camera body, and rotated around.  But every time I took the lens off, the hair would be rotated such that I couldn't see it where I was expecting to.  There was just sufficient suction from the vacuum cleaner to pull enough of the hair free of the camera body for me to see it.

I have included a photo of my DSLR below for those who do not use such a beast and are wondering what I am on about.  Not that I am an expert, seeing as I have only used my DSLR for a few months for this blog. I have merely scratched the surface of DSLR cameras.  So much to learn. Great fun!!!