VisibleDust SL-788 Arctic Butterfly with Light

As I start this review, let me say I have friend who used this brush to remove a speck of dust and it worked great for him. Thus, I picked this up myself for my Nikon D40 and D90. I was hoping to not have to clean my sensor wet after hearing warnings and possible mishaps. Let me say it is better and easier to wet clean your sensor now that I have done it (photographic solutions Eclipse liquid and sensor swabs).If you have one or two pieces of dust this may be the solution to try first. It has worked for others as documented here. It didn't work for me. I used it once, twice, and then kept going ... trying to get rid of "Dust" or "something" stuck on my sensor (even after 10 wet swipes it is still there). Anyways, after about two tries I must have smeared the sensor. This can occur if the brush even slightly bumps the surrounding sensor box or anything else on the way when being inserted through the camera carefully to the sensor. It looked like dirt and possibly scratches (were streaks) on the sensor when I took a sky picture at lowest aperture (highest F number). My heart sank and my stomach felt sick. I thought I messed up my sensor somehow. Did an abrasive piece of dirt or sand get in? What did that brush do to my beloved sensor?Turns out, the brush didn't do anything. Didn't scratch my sensor. Didn't clean my sensor. It smeared my sensor with some type of dirt or grease and made it look horrible. I couldn't see it on the brush, but it was on my sensor. I was trying to clean some dust off the sensor for routine maintenance and was leaving to go out-of-town the next day and needed my camera. Luckily a local "professional" camera shop could clean my sensor the next morning no problem before I left. Drop it off and pick it up in an hour. Only will cost $100 + . Well, in a hurry to get on the road and wanting to take my beloved D90, I let them clean the smudges and dirt out. I did not have a wet kit, never cleaned it before and didn't have time to learn.The camera shop did a great job cleaning the smudges and streaks out of the sensor. Trouble is, there was more dirt and dust in the camera then when I started. "There is no warranty, we did the best we could, and you could have changed lenses in the wind blah blah" I was told. Never again! I came home from said trip, and ordered a wet kit (sensor swabs and Eclipse from photographic solutions). I have used and tested it on my D40 which was never cleaned and had about 20 or so dust specks. After two swipes of wet swabs, it was perfect. After the D40 preliminary tests, I Used the wet swabs on the D90. Did not get it as perfect as I wanted, but close enough for now (after too many swipes lol). I did use the artic brush a few times to help intimidate a couple fibers and specks off of the sensor. Thus I had to give it a few stars for that.SUMMARY:I deducted the two stars because the brush didn't remove all my dust, it smeared my sensor (be VERY careful), and it is way expensive. I think the companies that sell camera cleaning supplies are making billions on stuff like this and sensor swabs (almost $40 for a box of 12)!! I have since cleaned my brush in some 91% pure rubbing alcohol to remove any possible contaminants, we'll see how that works. I personally wouldn't recommend this brush. However you may wish to use the brush if you find the need to try and remove one piece of dust that is bugging you or you want to complement your cleaning arsenal with all the expensive tools. Now that I do own it, it has come in handy a few times when I needed to kind of swipe a piece of dust or fiber off the sensor before or after wet cleaning... hence I think it deserves maybe three stars. Order and use it at your own risk.

I have three DSLR cameras - an older Canon Rebel XT with APS-C crop sensor and two Canon 5D MkIIs full frame cameras, one of which is converted as infrared (IR) camera. With the ultrasonic cleaning capability of my regular 5D MkII I rarely seen severe dust spots at smaller apertures in my photos, but it became an issue with my IR-converted 5D MkII since the ultrasonic cleaner function was removed during the conversion/filter exchange process. Since I am often changing lenses on my cameras, I collected visible dust especially on the IR-filter on top of the digital sensor in my converted DSLR camera. Dust-blowing only got rid of less than half of the dirt, the other dirt particles were stuck electrostatically on the filter. I tried a few simple cleaning methods (Q-tips for example), but still dust remained.This is when I decided to buy the Arctic Butterfly. It comes in a padded plastic case - the pen itself is very simple, just a rotating fine brush and a three-way switch for off, lamp turn on, and to rotate the brush. A simple 1.2 V AAA battery is missing in the package - for the price of this tool it wouldn't hurt to at least include a battery! The Arctic Butterfly comes without a manual, I recommend watching the video of how to use it correctly first before doing anything:[...]The rotation of the brush fibers charge them electrostatically which adsorbs the dust from the sensor filter. As described in the video, carefully move the brush horizontally in one direction. Try to avoid touching the brush fibers with the case surrounding the filter. The small LED lamp is very useful here to light the space on the filter plane. Then remove the brush, hold the pen away from the camera and rotate the brush for a bit. I recommend repeating the procedure especially on the larger full frame sensors to capture particles on the top and the bottom of the sensor filter. I tested the quality of cleaning by taking a photo at a small aperture (f/16 for example) and review the RAW file on a PC screen. Dust appears as small dark dots. After my cleaning with the Arctic Butterfly I did not see any visible dust left on my sensor filter. I used the same cleaning procedure on my other tow regular DSLRs with the same outcome - sensors were very clean afterwards. It is a quick and easy process which made this tool worthwhile to have.I only removed a star from the maximum rating of this product since I find it a bit overpriced, doesn't come with a simple AAA battery to get it started, and without a written manual. Minor issues when comnpared to the main purpose, the excellent dry-cleaning process.

This product delivers as promised and can be an invaluable investment. It is easy to use, it does a great job and is very handy. So, what's not to like?First, it is expensive, but one can justify the cost given what it may cost to take your camera to a service shop for sensor cleaning, but forget shopping around in getting any kind of discount. The company tightly controls its distributors' retail pricing. While it has had a monopoly, such a retail price maintenance policy is inviting competition, which is starting to emerge. But, second, and this is my greatest gripe, at least the first model turned out to be surprisingly battery corrosive fragile. When I needed it while traveling, I discovered one of the supplied batteries had mild corrosion which not only shut the unit down but destroyed the entire electrical circuit. I tried cleaning out the corrosion, which was apparently not extensive, but the unit had become one dead puppy.I ended up buying another one. Like the last one, it works like a charm. But I now keep the battery outside of the unit, since I can't afford buying a third unit at current prices. In short, most people will be very happy with this product, but I strongly recommend storing the unit with the battery kept outside until needed.