DIgital Camera Tips #2

Today we'll give you two more tips to the care and treatment of your digital camera. With a little care and attention your camera will give you many years of service...that is unless you upgrade it, then it will lie all alone in your drawer. Anyway, here are today's tips.

3. Dust

  Like sand, dust can be a natural enemy of a digital camera. It is more subtle as it won't generally scratch your moving parts, but it can be just as damaging when it works its way onto your camera's inner parts or settles onto your image sensor.

You should wipe your camera down each day, and be careful when you open the camera for any reason - to change a lens, batteries or change your memory card. Always travel with your camera in a sealed bag. When we were in Canyonlands we found the wind blew everywhere, so we kept our cameras wrapped in bandanas to protect them and yet have them readily available.


If you have a DSLR - digital camera with interchangeable lenses, consider having the sensor professionally cleaned every now and then. We can help you with that. We can also help you if you see spots that occur in the same place all the time. Most often, it is dust on the sensor and with the cameras with interchangeable lenses, we can often fix that problem.

4. Moisture/Water


This is one of the quickest ways to end your camera's life. Always be aware of where you set you camera and where it can be knocked. Use the wrist or neck strap to prevent dropping the camera into water.

As far as humidity and that kind of moisture, keeping silica gel packs in your camera bag helps. Allowing your camera to warm up or cool down before using outside will also help, if you have the time to do this. Wipe your camera down when it is humid and especially after being exposed to water spray.

Well, that is it for today. We have three more tips which we will post tomorrow or Monday.