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A piece of lint
- Thread starter hayn
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SnoDrtRider
Member
I would try the compressed air as Sally suggested and keep the phone out of your belly button from now on
Get a vacuum cleaner and try that. This trick also works on fairly big camera lens also
I have a handheld digital camera, and had dust on the inside, and was ruining my pics. Someone told me about this trick and I'll be damn if it didn't take care of the dust.Robotics said:Get a vacuum cleaner and try that. This trick also works on fairly big camera lens also
How do you do that with the vacuum?
Also, while vacuuming, tap LIGHTLY with something like a hard plastic spoon on the phone where the lens is and that will help to let the dust detach. This is the way newer digital cameras remove dust from the sensor - by vibrating it at a high frequency and the dust simply falls to the bottom via gravity.
Easiest way to tell is download another camera app and try it. I'm afraid it might be hardware.
Be sure you have a lot of light and the camera is steady for your test. Try it with both apps and compare.
Hoping you didn't use the Hammer! But seriously. I have a D2 that stopped focusing properly. It was doing fine, then I started getting blurry pictures every once in a while. It got worse over time and eventually it stopped altogether. You can actually hear the lens moving in and out during focusing if you put it up to your ear. If you hear faint clicks that will tell you it's moving in and out to attempt to focus. If you hear nothing (as my D2 eventually did), then the lens is frozen.
You SHOULD be able to see the movement of the actual lens. First put your phone into camera mode. Then, hold the phone vertically with the display facing away at a slight angle, and position the phone with the camera lens so that it's under a bright light and you're looking at it not straight on, but slightly from the side. The light from overhead will cast a small shadow around the focusing element. Then lightly tap your display screen to cause it to refocus and watch the lens (and the shadow) closely. The lens should move outward toward the back of the phone about 1 or 2 mm, then back in as it tries to find focus. If you have the right light and angle you'll see the circular shadow around the inner lens assembly go from almost none to one about 2mm wide and then back to almost no shadow. If this is happening, then it's more likely a software problem for you.
On my D2, it simply didn't move and to be sure I was troubleshooting properly I would tap the phone on the desk either on the back (to focus distance) or on the face (to focus close-up) and could actually take pictures in relatively good focus that way. This proved to me it was a motor issue, not a software one and the camera was still taking pictures accurately given the light that was passing through the lens.
I actually disassembled mine and replaced the camera with one bought from a parts salvager off eBay. It works perfectly now.
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I would try the compressed air as Sally suggested and keep the phone out of your belly button from now on
NEVER use compressed air to clean a phone. It will NOT clear out the dust, it will force it further inside.
I don't disagree with you in part...yes, the dust may blow inward rather than outward, but any airflow in at one spot will result in an equal amount of air flowing out in others. The rule of "path of least resistance" applies here as it does in any "leak", whether gas or fluid. So the compressed air will cause an airflow, and the result will be SOME air flowing out and with it, HOPEFULLY the dust around the lens of the camera.
The preferred method in my opinion would be suction rather than pressure. The problem with pressure (or compressed air) is it comes with other things...mainly moisture. When ambient air is compressed, the humidity in the ambient air is also compressed, so the result is a higher water to air ratio, or better said a higher moisture content in the air that is blowing out of the nozzle. There is also the possibility that along with that higher moisture content is lubricant from the compressor cylinder (which is usually lubricated with light oil).
If you use not compressed "air", but instead compressed GAS as in the over-the-counter cans, you avoid the moisture, and also the "lubricants" and are likely to have an inert gas (not to mention the lack of fragments or airborne particles), that will do NO harm to the phone.
However there is ONE perhaps notable advantage to compressed air over suction...the lack of microscopic fragments that were filtered out by the intake filter on the compressor. Whether the benefit of the lack of fragments is outweighed by the potentially contaminating oil and higher moisture content (remember, this is an electronic device with highly sensitive componentry and traces on the board that are only fractions of milimeters apart, and moisture or water conducts electricity), is debatable. If suction is used, you avoid the increased moisture from the compression and you also avoid the potential oil contamination as well, but you don't avoid sucking into the phone airborne contaminants (mainly...you guessed it, DUST).
This entire process would be best done with suction and in a "clean room" or "clean containment" instead.
My second choice would be compressed gas in a can off the shelf.
My third choice would be suction in an open air environment, and OUTSIDE (which is actually more free of airborne particles for the most part than indoor air - especially after a rain storm when the PPM is extremely low).
My LAST choice would be compressed air from a home or shop air compressor.