How should I clean my focusing screen?

Question

While on holidays I managed to get hair and dust onto the focusing screen of my 550D. How should I clean this off.

I have already tried a normal lens cloth, but that only made it worse.

Answer 1

Well, first I should mention that dust on the focusing screen has no effect on the image quality or the exposure metering, so for that sake there is no need to clean it. On the other hand the dust may get loose and get onto the sensor, so it's a good preventive measure tog get the worst dust away at least.

To clean it, you should first turn the camera off, to reduce the static electricity. A dust blower is good for removing dust. A brush can also be useful, but the drawback is that they tend to lose bristles now and again, which adds to the matter that you want to remove.

Answer 2

You can always remove the focusing screen then puff some air on it with a blower or whatever.

Here's a website with instructions on how to remove the focus screen. http://www.focusingscreen.com/work/550den.htm

You may simply end up with more dust though. Who knows. Good luck!

Answer 3

Take it to a repair shop. Nine times out of ten you make it worse when trying to fix these kind of things at home.

Answer 4

i would prefer you take it to a service provider . but if u wanna insist on cleaning it then these steps should help, clean it in a dust free area.

1)avoid blowing directly. User a Blower bulb.Turn off your camera.

2)make sure you have your camera's front side facing the ground. this way, it will make sure your dusts will get out of your camera and not fall back in while blowing .

3)never use a cloth or brush, even if it if just a focusing screen and not a sensor. they tend to settle dusts and particles in critical internal areas of the camera.

4) i would still suggest you to take it to a service center :)

Answer 5

I regularly use my air compressor to clean my cameras & enlargers. I also use it to clean dust of the negatives & carriers before printing. You want a blast about twice as hard as you could blow with your lungs. The secret is to just make sure you don't blast it so hard you break something.

You don't want to use a cloth or a brush as the tend to make more of a mess then when you started. Also do not use chemicals as its hard to get in to use them properly with out disassembly & it tends to be more work then its worth to remove them.