In Digital Living

How to clean your digital SLR camera

To get the best-quality images from your dSLR, you'll need to give it a dust every now and then, both on the inside and out. Camera editor Rich Trenholm guides you step-by-step through cleaning your camera to make your photos blemish-free

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Lock up your mirror

Once you have read the manufacturer's cleaning instructions, turn your camera on and set it to cleaning mode. It's essential that the camera remains on -- if the power goes off, the shutter curtain will drop.

If it closes on any of your cleaning tools, the shutter curtain and mirror could be damaged, and that's not good at all. So make sure the battery is fully charged or, even better, attach your SLR to the AC adaptor.

The mirror, a clear piece of glass angled in the front of the exposed camera, will flip up out of the way. You don't need to worry about cleaning this as it doesn't affect image quality. When you put the camera into cleaning mode, the shutter curtain will also flip and the sensor is exposed -- sort of.