Small price to pay for clean shots

Victor Habbick is a photographer, artist, designer and member of ePHOTOzine's Pro critique team. His work is published world wide and he supplies stock markets on a regular basis. His advice will range from kit choices and editing software to supplying agencies and finding inspiration. He describes his work as having commercial sensibilities with a touch of the surreal and you can find out more about this by visiting his ePHOTOzine profile or by visiting his personal website: Victor Habbick.

Here's his tip:

"With digital it is imperative that you keep your sensor clean. There is many DIY kits on the market and YouTube have a few tutorials in how to do it but I have to admit that a professional clean is worth all the money. For my own Nikon 200 I pay around £35. With the amount of time I safe on retouching sensor dust marks from my stock its money well spent.

There is a move towards having sensor self cleaning like vibration etc to move dust off but I have been told by my pro cleaner business that all they do it shake the dust of into other parts of the camera where they also do unseen damage in due course. Ultimately we all spend hundreds if not thousands on camera kits so its a small price to pay for clean shots.

This picture has large areas of smooth colour and it would become very obvious if the sensor was dirty and would cause many hours of careful retouching. You must magnify your shots to at least 200% in Photoshop and inspect all areas carefully. Its not always noticeable at 100% or below."