> i was curious what happens if one shoots with a dirty lens/filter? > for example if there are finger prints, smudges, dust, fibers or just > fungus > on either the front or the rear element? any personal experiences?
You're always best off keeping your lenses clean to get the best results. In my experience at my last job, people who complained of bad photos (out of focus, too soft, spots, etc) usually had a giant, greasy fingerprint on their lens. It was always difficult to not burst into fits of laughter when they'd say they didn't think that smudging was a problem, especially when the camera was a small P&S thing with a relatively small lens. One fingerprint on a small P&S lens can cover the whole thing and ruin a lot of photos. On an SLR, the lens is usually large enough that a small smudge or a couple specks of dust won't have a major effect on your images. However, I am one of those perfectionists who hates having any marks on my lens, so I frequently clean mine when I use them. > do we get similar marks on the recording media (film/sensor)? > i doubt it. do we get incorrect colors? bad saturation? chromatic > abberations? haze? Marks and dust on sensors can cause all sorts of problems. Dust produces dark blotches in your photos, most noticeably in solid-color areas like blue sky or white wall. I've seen one customer who stuck his finger on his CCD to get dust off it and ended up putting major scratches into the thing, producing lines in all of his photos. His excuse was he'd bought the camera online and they had never told him not to do such things. None of us could believe such foolishness. Anyway, if you get dust on your sensor, there are two options I'd recommend. 1. Get a sensor cleaning kit, preferrably from the following link (it's what we used to clean customers' sensors) http://www.photosol.com/swabproduct.htm 2. Take your camera to a specialty shop that offers sensor cleanings. It'll cost more, but if they screw up you can blame them instead of yourself. ;) John Celio -- http://www.neovenator.com AIM: Neopifex "Hey, I'm an artist. I can do whatever I want and pretend I'm making a statement." -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
