"Spot" on photos

[bender16v]

I’m not sure who to ask about this so hopefully somebody can help. I sold my D3100 body a couple weeks ago and bought a D7000. I’ve been shooting a lot with it and I have noticed that sometimes there is a spot in the middle of my photos. I’ve changed lenses so it’s not on there, and it doesn’t appear all of the time. Here are two photos taken seconds apart. One has the spot and one doesn’t. It’s really annoying since I don’t know what to do. Any ideas?

Spot:
http://www.nemesisbaits.com/chris/ps/Spot%20on%20Bench.jpg

No spot:
http://www.nemesisbaits.com/chris/ps/No%20Spot%20on%20Bench.jpg

I can’t figure out how to post the photos either, but that’s another topic.

[linguine]

Looks like dust either on the lens or sensor to me. Do you know if you used a narrower aperture for the spot shot than the no spot shot?

[Farktographer]

I have similar spots that show up on my D7000 when I shoot at high f-stops. It’s annoying; it’s not the sensor, and it’s not on the outside of the glass, which means it’s something inside the kit lens. Is yours a similar issue?

[orionid]

It’s dusty in here.

[bender16v]

Farktographer, yes, the first one is at f11 and the second is f5.6. I never thought of that. I was using a 50mm f1.8 lens with a soft focus filter, but all surfaces on those were clean. I had the same spot show up last week on some sunset photos with a different lens. I’ll look to see if it was on the shots with higher f-stops. I do know that it is always in exactly the same place. I wonder what that is? I’m really curious now that you have experienced the same thing.

[sleeping]

Dust on/inside a lens isn’t directly visible without some pretty extreme circumstances (e.g. I got some front element dust showing up once by using so many extension tubes that the front element was pretty much within the DOF).

It’s much, much more likely to be on the sensor.

Often a good blowing with a rocket blower or similar will get rid of it without needing swabs etc.

[Yugoboy]

Nothing to add, except that I can’t be the only one who’s ever been annoyed when a fiber shows up in the viewfinder because it landed on the mirror. Scared the pee outta me the first time it happened…

[Plamadude30k]

Yeap, looks like dust to me. The first thing you’d want to try is the “Clean Sensor” function on the D7000’s menu (it’s buried somewhere in there, and almost certainly in the manual). If that doesn’t work, go for the rocket blower. If THAT doesn’t work, sensor swabs. That’s my usual procedure, anyway, and I clean my sensor every so often, just in case.

[Farktographer]

I’ve tried “clean sensor” and rocket blowers several times with mine and it never cleared, but perhaps I should get sensor swabs a go, since it seems more likely to be on my sensor than on the lens. I’m just scared shitless I’m going to ruin my gear somehow. Any tips other than the general hubbub my google-fu will give me?

[bender16v]

Same here, I’ve tried “clean sensor” several times and it has been through many power cycles where it does that as well. Maybe I’ll try to swing by the local camera shop and see if they can clean it. 😈
I looked at photos from last week and it showed up at f11, but not f10. Here’s one from last week with a different lens, straight out of the camera with it in the same place:
http://www.nemesisbaits.com/chris/ps/spot.jpg

[kashari]

Yikes…hopefully it’s not the oil/lubricant spot problem that some have reported. Luckily I haven’t had any issues with my D7000. One person said if they put it in Q mode, it wouldn’t throw the oil, so maybe try that & see if it still spots. That may help determine if it’s dust or lubricant.

Here’s a Flickr thread about it:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/d7000-club/discuss/72157625681752931/

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