I finally had it out with a customer who insisted on cleaning sensors with canned air

This guy walks into my shop last Tuesday with a Sony A7III and says it has dust spots. Before I can even grab my tools, he pulls out a can of compressed air and says he always cleans sensors this way. I had to stop him mid-spray and explain how that just pushes dust deeper and can mess up the shutter. He argued for a solid 10 minutes saying his buddy does it all the time with no issues. I finally just showed him my own sensor with a scratched filter from the same mistake I made 3 years ago. He backed off but still looked skeptical. Have any of you dealt with customers who think they know better than the person they paid for a repair?

2 comments

2 Comments

markl758d agoMost Upvoted

3 years ago I would have agreed with you beth_mitchell but seeing that scratched filter changed my whole view.

beth_mitchell8d ago

Compressed air is fine for sensors if you know what you're doing. People act like it's some kind of death sentence but I've been doing it for years on multiple cameras and never had a single issue. The key is not spraying directly into the camera like a moron, you tilt the can and use short bursts while the shutter is closed. Your scratched sensor story is just your own bad experience, doesn't mean everyone else will screw up the same way. Maybe that customer had a point and you were too busy being the "expert" to actually listen.