An ounce of prevention is worth ...

[RobertTheFat]

... a pound of cure, or so the saying goes.

A colleague at work has just returned from a two-week tour of Germany and Austria. As he began to go through the pictures from his trip, he noticed, to his horror, that all had small round spots near the right-hand edge of the frame. He called me over, and I immediately diagnosed them as oil spots on the sensor. (His camera is a 4-year-old DSLR from a respected Japanese manufacturer, but not a Canon.) A quick Google search confirmed the existence of a vast body of user complaint and commentary on those oil spots, which, it turns out, are the result of a well-known flaw in that particular model. Evidently the mirror mechanism comes with too much oil and throws the excess onto the sensor. (As it happens, I had heard of that flaw, but didn't realize that my friend's camera was one of the models affected.)

My friend admitted that he had noticed the spots once or twice before, but had attributed them to drops of water on the lens. Since he hadn't noticed them in subsequent shoots, he thought no more about it.

The moral of this story is that if you're not a professional who constantly monitors the state of his equipment, and you have a one-of-a-kind photo shoot coming up, have your camera cleaned and inspected BEFORE you go.

[ebiggs1]

This is a well know fact in my circle of buds.  We are well aware of it.

[RobertTheFat]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

This is a well know fact in my circle of buds.  We are well aware of it.

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I should hope so. You are, as I understand it, semi-retired from a long professional career. So I'd expect you to be highly risk-averse in the care of your equipment. But there are, I'm afraid, a lot of well intentioned photographers out there who aren't.

[ebiggs1]

I am even more retired this year as I was last year.  I have only shot two weddings so far and I am not searching for any more. I shoot what I want any more. I have not updated the web site at all.

But it is a different life when you work for a large company vs being a freelance on your own photographer.  Hallmark took care of all repairs and upkeep.  There was no piece of equipment they would not buy. All you had to do was say you needed it.

You would be surprised, horrofied maybe, at what I have seen pro's do with thier equipment. It is all about getting the shot.