From the course: Video Production and Post Tips

Why you need a clean sensor

From the course: Video Production and Post Tips

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Why you need a clean sensor

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- Hi, my name's Rich Harrington. - And I'm Robbie Carmen. - And this week, we're gonna talk about a problem that, I've gotta admit, Rob, I often struggle with this. And it's a dirty sensor. What's wrong with a dirty sensor? - Well, besides the dirt factor, which you know, Rich, I'm a little OCD about my gear in the first place, and so any dirt on anything kind of bothers me. - Yeah. - Of course, this has practical ramifications, right? When you have dirt on the sensor, there's potential for that dirt, whether it be little piece of dust, oil, or you know, specks of debris from something, if that gets onto your image sensor, or for that matter, onto your lens, it potentially can show up in your images. - [Rich] You see, the challenge with this is that it's not something that you can just brush off. Now in the stills world, it's not a big deal. It's annoying, but it's quite possible to remove things. But if you're doing time lapse, or shooting video, and there's a spot, or a smudge that's over your footage, especially as the subject moves, or the camera pans, well that's not a quick fix in post, and sometimes it's even impossible. - Yeah, that's a really good point, Rich. Obviously in the stills world, people have probably, you know, become used to using tools like, you know, clone and stamp, and other spot corrections. When the content is moving though, and that spot starts over here, then it goes over somebody's face, and then it goes over to this wall, it can be more than just a little bit annoying. So this week, we're gonna dive into how to identify sensor noise, and then more importantly, how to eradicate it from your sensor with a number of different options for cleaning your camera sensor. - And we're gonna make sure that you see how to do this with the built in tools, as well as really affordable options. And some things that get a little bit more technically challenging, but you might want to keep on hand if you have to fix it yourself. And of course, Rob, there's always the good old advice of: - Go to the camera shop and have somebody else do it. - Absolutely. So we're gonna talk about all those methods next.

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