What is causing this black shape on my Photos from my Nikon D50?
I have a Nikon D-50 that I got used for Christmas. It was bought off my aunt who I believe takes very good care of her cameras. I have noticed this black shadow shape in the top left section of my photos. I see it clearest when I take pictures of the sky. I would like to know what is causing it. I have tried different lenses and it is still there, so I know it is from the camera itself. What would cause it? What needs to be cleaned? How do you clean it? Thanks for any help. Please let me know what you think.
Here are the links to the examples of what I mean. I had to shrink the file to post it, so the detail isn't as clear. But in its regular size. It is quite noticeable.
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/gallery/view_img.php?id=38603
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/gallery/view_img.php?id=38602&skip=12
You have a dirty sensor. I think.
I'm not sure if you have a sensor cleaner on your camera.
But you can clean it manually.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/photography-tips/Sensor-Cleaning.aspx
It is some dirt on the sensor caused by changing the lens in dusty conditions.
Do NOT touch the sensor, you can scratch it and then you are looking at a $300 repair job
It's dirt on the sensor. I'd recommend getting it professionally cleaned if you don't feel confident to do the job yourself.
If its just dust, its fairly easy to just blow it off the sensor (put the camera in mirror up mode to reveal the sensor) and use a rocket blower gently. If its an oily deposit or more stuck on then you can 'wet' clean the sensor - sensor cleaning kits are available, but its up to you.
Sensor dust only really becomes visible when you're shooting stopped down (f16 or smaller) unless its really big. You can always not bother & just remove any spots using post processing (Photoshops healing tool for example).
You can get dirt on the snesor even if you never change a lens - moving parts iside the camera generate minute particles as they wear & this can end up on the sensor.
Since you have already established that the fault is with the camera, just send it to the repair shop and have it looked at by professional technicians. Its easy to come up with many different answers to your question, even easier to damage the camera followed by an expensive repair by trying to repair it yourself.better to be safe than sorry: D
Its dirt on the sensor, here's a video to show you what's involved in a wet clean from the manufacturers of Eclipse Fluid and the sensor swabs that I use.
http://www.photosol.com/video/sensorswab.html
It's some dirt on the sensor. Most likely you can get it off yourself if you use one of those rocket blowers http://www.google.co.uk/...CC8QzAMwAA But do NOT attempt to touch or physically clean the sensor yourself. Take it to a camera repair shop if the rocket blower has no effect.
My camera has a few spots that now need professional removal, but I've found an effective way to avoid them showing up at all is not to use the lens set at really small apertures.f/11 or f/16 is really the highest you need to go for landscape shots anyway. From the EXIF data on your image, I can see you took the shot at f/22 - which is a little excessive.
Remember when you use a narrow aperture, the light source coming into the camera is like a small point of light - a point light source will cause the dirt to cast a shadow on the sensor therefore making it more visible, whereas a wider aperture is a larger size light source, thus reducing the effect - in fact it may more or less eliminate it all together.
Because I don't usually go above f/16 in any case, I think I can probably wait a bit longer before getting the sensor cleaned. If you use a local repair shop, it's not very expensive to get done. If you need to stop down to a narrow aperture than f/16, to get the correct exposure, I've often found an ND8 filter to be useful in avoiding that. What's more - landscapes taken at f/22 or above can also cause problems with diffraction, so that in effect higher f-stops look fuzzier and less sharp than something around f/16 or lower.