Camera care tips: pictures by Al Macphee/MiraclePR
To consistently turn out top quality pictures, while prolonging the life of your equipment, you need to have a regular kit care routine. Based on my experience, here are 4 top tips for looking after your kit:
Camera Care Tip 1: Make sure your sensors are clean
One year at the Brixham Trawler Race, I went out in a boat and shot the race, and then I came in and shot the Red Devils parachute team dropping in at the harbour. I found out the hard way that my sensor was filthy. There were little black marks right the way through the parachute cords. It took me half an hour to blotch out all those blooming marks – just for one image! The trawlers had dots all over the masts and in the rigging. So, that meant clone, clone, clone, colour in, colour in… It took me ages.
For certain events such as air shows, you’ve got to be particularly careful. You must make time to clean your sensors because you will be shooting into a light sky. Any black marks will show up clearly, as this image shows.
For the sake of five minutes of cleaning, you will avoid spending hours on Photoshop. All you need is a blower brush, a sensor cleaning kit and a clean, dust free place in which to work. Make sure you clean sensors indoors if possible. You don’t do it on a beach, or anywhere where there is a lot of dust around.
Camera Care Tip 2: Have silica gel in your kit bag
If your bag gets damp, you’re at risk of fungus. If that gets onto your lens, it can give you a soft focus effect. I recommend using silica gel because it absorbs moisture, helping to keep everything dry. You can buy it online really easily. I used to buy it from Jessops and put a couple of sachets in the bottom of my bag.
Tip 3: Keep the inside of your bags clean
Ever so often, hoover out the inside of your bag to get rid of any dust or sand, etc. With the popularity of artificial sports pitches, rubber crumb has become a bit of a problem. It gets everywhere, and because it’s black, I don’t always notice it in the bottom of my bag. If you chuck a lens in there, and then you throw your bag about, that rubber crumb is liable to get into your lens or in the body your camera. That’s a shutter killer.
Tip 4: Use body and lens caps
In the example above, even if you did miss some rubber crumb, you can prevent problems by making sure you always put your lens and body caps on when you put your kit in the bag. Ideally you would have a separate body for each lens, so that you’re not taking the lens off. But that doesn’t work in real life. Sometimes you have to chop and change outside. So bring plenty of body and lens caps with you.
Have a burning photography question you would like Al to write about in his next blog post? Email info@miraclepr.com with your request.