Sensor cleaners

[Daveash]

I was recently in Houston and sought advice from a leading camera dealer who advised that the Delkin complete sensor cleaning kit was a better bet than the Arctic Butterfly. I paid $160 for the kit only to be completely disappointed and frightened to use the supplied spatulas and cleaning fluid again. The redeaming feature of this kit is without doubt the scope, with it one can see the smallest specs of dust very clearly. But this is where the problems begin. Delkin say that the cleaning solution is non alcoholic etc which is good, however when used it leaves horrible smears which are very difficult to remove with the supplied spatulas. One should only administer one wipe of the spatula but at least three or four are needed. Once the smears have been removed the spatulas leave behind fine fibre particle. Supplied with the kit is a vacuum cleaner with a soft brush attachment. In my opinion the soft brush is not soft and the vacuum cleaner does not have a vacuum. The device is made of hard plastic and the brush is short making it very easy if not careful to touch the sensor with the plastic bit. It was only after I bought the device did I read some reviews on another very good website DPreview.com, where to my surprise I found very similar appraisals of this product. I will continue to use the scope which is excellent but will use my nice camel hair puffer brush and find some other spatula device for touching the sensor, possibly Kim lint free scientific wipes which I use for other delicate applications such as cleaning fibre optic cores prior to terminating etc.
Daveash