Nikon girls... cleaning your DSLR through Nikon?

Now that the holidays are over, it's time for me to part with my DSLR for a bit and bring it over to Nikon in Melville for a cleaning.. Sadly, I've never done it before, but I've been talked into it and I'm ready now that I can part with it for a bit.

Has anyone brought to Nikon for cleaning (nothing broken, just want it cleaned)? How long did they have it? did they charge? Do I need to call or do I just go there?

What about lenses? Do I bring them to be cleaned too? Do they even need to be?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Message edited 12/28/2010 11:56:54 PM.

Re: Nikon girls... cleaning your DSLR through Nikon?

I've never dropped of but send stuff in all teh time. They have my 50 mm 1.4 that I dropped with on of my D700's last week!

Usually you have everything back in about 2 weeks or less unless you need anything major. They will quote the job before starting any work and let you know what needs to be done.

Lenses don't need to be cleaned but they do need to be re calibrated from time to time.

How many shutter actuations do you have on the camera?

My D700 has 100,000+ and I still haven't sent it in for regular service, it doesn't need it.

Unless you are having trouble with your images I see no need to send it in. I have the camera shutter do a self clean every time the camera is shutdown to get off any dust.

They are great over there! You should be fine with whatever you decide to do. DEF do it an Nikon though and not anyone else!

Re: Nikon girls... cleaning your DSLR through Nikon?

If you're talking about cleaning the sensor you can do it yourself, but it can be a bit scary the first time. I've got a Canon and I've cleaned my sensor a few times. If you don't use your camera alot it may not be worth investing in the stuff you need to clean your own sensor but if you use it alot and change lenses frequently it's a good skill to have.

Are you seeing spots of sensor dust on your images when you print them? It's most noticible on single color areas like skys or a white wall. You can shoot an image of a white wall and see if there are spots showing.

Re: Nikon girls... cleaning your DSLR through Nikon?

Thanks for your reply Maria!

My camera is at 19,881 shutter actuations - and I got the camera in May 2006. Not a lot, I'm guessing! Haven't used it much in the past year with a lot of stuff going on.... but I am finding that I often see a lot of "spots" or halos and at one point, it looked like I had a hair on all my pics (which I ended up blowing out when I had it in bulb mode).

So maybe I don't need it cleaned with less than 20K pics? I would have sworn in was more with the rate I rapid fire! But I had it at the park/beach this summer and it got splashed with a sandy water droplet and now my on-board flash doesn't pop up all the way (not that I use it, but when DH uses my camera he uses it in auto and the flash pops up then). So I've been meaning to have that cleaned as well.

*sigh. what to do... (secretly beg DH for an upgrade, but seeing how little I use it, that's probably not a good idea)

I have an older D50 model. How do you have your camera shutter do a self clean?

Re: Nikon girls... cleaning your DSLR through Nikon?

Posted by chmlengr

Thanks for your reply Maria!

My camera is at 19,881 shutter actuations - and I got the camera in May 2006. Not a lot, I'm guessing! Haven't used it much in the past year with a lot of stuff going on.... but I am finding that I often see a lot of "spots" or halos and at one point, it looked like I had a hair on all my pics (which I ended up blowing out when I had it in bulb mode).

So maybe I don't need it cleaned with less than 20K pics? I would have sworn in was more with the rate I rapid fire! But I had it at the park/beach this summer and it got splashed with a sandy water droplet and now my on-board flash doesn't pop up all the way (not that I use it, but when DH uses my camera he uses it in auto and the flash pops up then). So I've been meaning to have that cleaned as well.

*sigh. what to do... (secretly beg DH for an upgrade, but seeing how little I use it, that's probably not a good idea)

I have an older D50 model. How do you have your camera shutter do a self clean?