How to clean a dirty Sensor and blocked Zoom of a compact digital camera in 3 minutes 

I today tried your trick with my recently bought used g7x mark ii compact camera and it worked! I before tried with out the plastic bottle as others suggested but it didn't work. It worked instantly when I tried the hose fitted with the plastic bottle. Not the tiniest speckle of dust is visible on the sensor now and I'm happy. Thanks. 🙏

Thank-you! Cleaned the sensor on my LX100; and saved me from trying to dismantle it. A large cloudy dot on all my pictures is now gone:) I failed a few times until a strong vacuum and an airtight fit worked immediately.

This has just sorted a problem that a well known high street store charged me £30 to investigate, and wanted a further £90 to fix. Thanks for posting this!

Hello there, and many thanks for giving me the confidence to try a better vacuum arrangement than I'd tried in the past. This time I used a strong 500ml standard brown plastic medicine bottle. I cut the bottom off with a hacksaw along a line around the plastic bottle, and sanded it nice and flat on a table. I filed enough of the threads off the open top end of the bottle to get a snug push-fit into an old plastic vacuum extension tube that fits onto our LG domestic vacuum, which has a sliding variable speed switch on the business end of the main hose. I removed the battery from the camera with the lens extended and then retracted, and used the vacuum's crevice tool to do the inside of the battery compartment and the two cable ports. It worked first time - there had been some quite large bits in there. Years ago suction from a vacuum actually cross-threaded a plastic lens on my wife's Sony, so I was more cautious; I didn't dare use the vacuum on full power. My LX100 had been an eBay bargain, with fewer than 180 shutter firings, but then I discovered a few specs of debris. I happily paid a camera repairer to clean it, and optimistically thought that one-time payment might put an end to dust forever. I suspected the dust might have been left inside in the factory, in some little hiding spaces, or it might have got in through the battery compartment, which is right next to the sensor. While there still may be some *very* tiny spots in there that won't shift, they don't show in photos. 5 trips to the camera repairer would cost about the same as a new LX100 (not MkII), so this trick is well worth doing. Thanks again.

Brilliant! I used this technique on my original LX100.

good vid thanks for uploading, note on the LX100 you can remove the outer bezel simply with a quarter turn anticlockwise and lift off to reveal the lip of the zoom lens assembly, that way you don't need to find a filter or anything to get some grip on it. it will also allow access to 1 small black screw to remove and clean the aperture control ring while you are at it, but be careful with the tiny ball bearing and note the positions before removing. Also in my case it helped to hold the camera lens-downward and apply vaccuum cleaner when you power on/off whilst "gently but firmly as you dare" pulling the lens out or indeed pushing back in if it sticks on the inward motion, this might require 3 hands! in my case i had to power on/off many times extending/collapsing the lens only a little at a time until the grit had cleared and i could very distinctly feel the grit in the mechanism . obviously you are trying to make it move only when the motor is attempting to power the lens. brute force will of course strip the gears or do some other permanent damage. Good luck if you have this problem and hope you get it sorted otherwise its sent away for a costly repair. A lesson i learned also is that this otherwise fantastic camera is not suitable for use at the beach !

I was a bit wary of using strong suction on a delicate lens like that of the LX100. Used a large yoghurt container, cut custom size holes at either end for camera and vacuum hose. After 5 tries, zooming in and out and turning camera on and off so lens does full length of travel, voila, all the dust (and what seemed like a small piece of hair) are all gone! At first the dust issue got worse, but I kept at it, and it worked like magic! Thanks for the great tip!

You are not a photographer... You are an engineer!! Great video! I'm going to try it

Thank you Patrick. I took the risk to clean it your way. Used the vac at minimum and it worked. Low intensity but a little longer. My sensor is 100% now!

350 € last time at Leica’s ( for my D lux type 109 ) for the same result ( and one month waiting for it to come back from Germany ). Many thanks.

it works on my lx100 most of the dust is gone.. thanks for sharing.. ☺️👍🏼

Thank you for this! I just saved the costs for cleaning my LX 100, thanks a lot.

It worked for my LX-100. Thanks!

It worked for me Leica D-Lux7. Thank you so much. Easy and free.

Did this with my panasonic LX100, but using a small water bottle (33cl) adapter taped to the tip of the hose doing zooming in and out, It worked, but my vaccum is a little too powerful, i got scared it was using a lot of force (even on low it collapsed the water bottle). Hope it didn't fuck anything up inside the lens, hey, but dust is gone.

Great idea. Worth a try before disassembling the whole camera to get to the sensor or £100 for cleaning. Just an idea that might help someone: I'll be doing it in a bathroom! Least dust environment. TLDR: As a background for some people: Generally, its known zoom/IS operation pumps dust/humidity into lenses. This is what's happening in small cameras as a whole. Its also likely there is other dust in than what's noticed (sensor/zoom mechanism). The vacuum action will swirl whatever is there, some may actually come out. It might dislodging what is on sensor or mechanism, but could also move stuff within and to the sensor. Someone mentioned, aiming lens down (and I'd add for a few seconds after vaccum) so gravity will aid dust to fall off, and avoid some landing back on sensor. As an aside, this is also advised when cleaning DSLRs sensors so any environment dust doesn't land in it. Repeating vacuum, should move stuff off eventually. There is also the point that air being sucked out will need to come from somewhere though. The vaccum is being done from a 'main entrance', the zoom action but there's the battery compartment as a unfiltered backdoor possibility for instance. Hence the choice of a room with the least dust: bathroom. Just, not one people had showers recently... otherwise might eventually get mushrooms growing in lens instead :D HTH

It works! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks a Million. 👍 Just tried your method and it cleaned my ZS/TZ200 the first go. 😬

worked for my lx100!! thanks!

Thank you very much, it was very useful to me thanks to this technique I managed to save a new Nikon A300 Coolpix that fell to the ground and entered dust inside.

It works for my LX100

Thank you Patrick!!! I was able to fix my TZ70 with your trick.

This men is a legend

It totally worked for my D-Lux7 Thanks a lot!

This works! Thank you!

Many thanks , i could fix my Lumix DMC-TZ80 easily !!

This is awesome!!!!

Hope works with ricoh gII. Im a little scared because I've read about unhappy experiences. Lumps of dust that instead of being sucked in are broken up, worsening the situation.

Great, thanks ☺

Thank you. Very useful.

My god!! It works. Thank you for that.

It is very good method. I had one dot before, now, i have 5 at liest

you are a genius!

I have just try it on my Lumix lx15. I had a spot on the sensor and now it is gone. Thanks!

Brilliant!

Thank you very much it's work perfect thank you again

thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!

I have a Canon G9X Mark II with the exact same problem with dust on the sensor, unfortunately it hasn't worked and I must have done it at least 10 times. Maybe my vacuum isn't powerful enough? Canon wants more than the value of the camera to "repair" (they said it would be replaced) to be fixed.

Thanks for sharing this - will try it on my lx10

Hey guys just checking if after some time of the vacuum repair, did it created any problems on your Lumix lx100. I have a similar lx100 ii that has the zoom error jam issue, probably because of dust. It has the exactly same problem, I have to force the zoom out, and sometimes at full zoom extension it turns off because of the same issue.

I am very lucky to only have one dust spot, I suppose. No problem going in and out. I am a clean freak, tho. So there is a trade-off;-)

it can of worked for me, it removed 80% of the dust, I might have to continue the process.

It did not work for me, now the sensor has even more dust. If anyone can suggest further solution I will be grateful!

You madman you!

With this method, I only ruined the sensor ... At the opening of f16, a pile of rot can be seen, the situation is much worse than before the cleaning attempt ...

Great idea :) My dust spot won’t budge. Has anyone come up with another method? Would blowing compressed air in be a really bad idea?

The stabilisation of my zs200 is not working: all the videos are shaky. Is this method could fix it ?

Didn't work for me on my Sony HX60V. One dark spot became many. Now I will have to disassemble to clean the sensor.

Hi Patrick, my compact GRD4 images are blur. Is it the sensor faulty? 😂😂😂 Is it dusty? Please save my baby.....! 😄

Thanks ... repair wants $208 before taxes to "fix" my zoom.