Well! I finally got the ruddy thing clean! This took 2+ hours on 2 separate occasions, over a boxful of Sensor Swabs @ £36 the box and many, many drops of that equally expensive super-pure meths. This in a 'new' camera that had never before had the lens off. Clean-room assembly line? I don't think so! It wasn't just dust I was fighting either, it was smear-y muck too.
A few tips:
First of all, Sony's own on-line advice as to cleaning mode is wrong, wrong, WRONG! Go into cleaning mode, select, the camera appears to turn off although it is still switched on. Do not, not, NOT switch it off until AFTER you have finished cleaning!
I found standard Sensor Swab advice to sweep right across the sensor from edge to edge unhelpful. Sony have left manufacturing muck around the sensor edges, and in substantial quanitity, this technique moves it into vision. Start from the middle of the sensor, sweep to one edge but don't drive the swab all the way to the edge 'cause that's where the muck is, keep it a hairsbreadth clear, turn the swab over, sweep the other way, again from the middle to almost the edge.
Obviously this leaves the muck at the sensor edge, just beyond vision. Likely it is going to find its way back sooner or later
![Sad :-(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
. However, for the time being
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
and the rat poison can be kept for the rats!
But what a kludge this whole 'interchangeable lens' business is! The dirt problem ought to have been engineered out by placing the cover glass a long way further ahead of the sensor, but that would have required fundamentally re-thinking lens design. Too much trouble, plus no retro-fit facility - but how many users are actually exploiting that? So we are left with this dreadful Achilles heel! At best, I like the NEX a lot, but really, sealed unit compacts do seem the better way forward.
Eric
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)