You have to buy a special “Sensor Gel Stick” sold on Photography Life website.
I bought mine about 7 years ago for around $60.
Buy it there and no other place, as Chinese knock-offs sold on Amazon will ruin your camera, and this is only place to buy it in the U.S. as they are the dealers.
This one is made in Germany and they use it at Leica to clean their sensors.
It consists of a stick with a special blue veeeery sticky gel cube at one end.
You apply it to sensor and it removes/transfers ALL particles onto the gel cube.
Subsequently, you press gel cube on a set of special, also sticky, little papers supplied, to transfer all the particles and gunk to the papers, leaving the gel cube nice and clean and ready for the next cleaning.
And your sensor will be too - nice and clean -- and no wet cleaning required.
Try it, you won’t regret it…

If you use manual lenses and have a left side grip, how are you going to hold a camera and adjust the lens at the same time?

Having always babied my large pro-body camera (1D series with handstrap), I was getting out of my car in New York City, rushing to pay for parking. Seconds before, I took my wallet out of my camera bag to get some change.
That day, inside my usually (camera+lens) tight-fitting bag, I had my camera with a newly bought pancake lens on, with some extra space in the bag remaining because of it.

Rushing out of the car, I only closed the bag with one plastic fastening/buckle out of the two, expecting to close it fully momentarily. Even with one fastener closed, the bag cover was still tightly sitting on top of the bottom half.
Somehow earlier the bag’s shoulder strap got twisted multiple times and to fix it, once outside, I strongly pulled it in opposite directions on both sides to undo the twisted shoulder strap, causing the bag to rotate and assume its normal position to be hung over my shoulder.
(To fix the strap I could either untwist the strap or simply rotate the bag a few times.
I went for the strap.)
Shockingly and totally unexpectedly at that very instance, the camera somehow found its way out and shot straight out of the bag into the air, about 5 fit high through what I considered impossibly small bag opening to go through.
Still spinning and with multiple bounces it landed on city asphalt sidewalk, scraping its finish, damaging a lens, hot shoe and its body.
To this day, years later and replaying it in my head, I still can’t figure out how it could physically happen with such a large camera and such a small, virtually non-existent opening and relatively not too hard of a pull on the strap!
Truly, one chance out of a thousand.
So, even when you baby your camera, accidents do happen even with neck or hand straps attached.

Agreed, nice captures.
However, how much of involvement in the initial taking & making of these images were actually by the "photographers" themselves, fully utilizing their artistic skills and knowledge, or did these "photographers" merely relied on the preset cellphones' algorithms and just pressed the button?
That is the question.
Subsequent post-processing is not so much of interest to me, as what they initially actually created themselves.
The advent of recent technological advancements in cellphone photography, has pretty much taken photographers and their skills out of the equation, allowing to frequently substitute their talents for the factory presets...
Can you be considered a good driver in a driverless car while sitting in a rear passenger seat?

In the past I had to send my camera in that was long out of warranty and each time I'd talk to Canon tech support, they'd arrange for a free prepaid shipping label, so I didn't have to pay anything.
Even when I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the first repair, they issued a second label still free of charge.
Surprised that with your camera, still being under warranty, Canon wants you to pay for shipping.
What about customer satisfaction 100% guarantee with a warranty to match?
In this day and age, with phone cameras eating into their profits they'd better up their game.
This is their business "face" and they'd better save it or they risk losing customers if the word gets around that they "sort of" honor their warranty repairs.... Kinda "half-way"...

As you were previously asked, what are your limitations with your present camera and what are you looking to attain? Just because someone has moved up to a different (next) level, doesn't automatically mean you have to do the same thing. If you have an older Chevrolet, but your neighbor just got a brand new Ferrari, it doesn't mean you need it too, if your only objective is to mostly drive to a mall to do groceries....
You should, in my opinion, upgrade a camera only when you outgrow it and realize its limitations that put a constrain on your creativity. New(er) camera won't make you a better photographer, if your skills aren't up the par. Also, getting features you won't be using in a new camera is also a waste of money.
So, the question still remains: what are you missing and what are you looking to get.
If you just want to know what else is out there "on the menu", though you're not really "hungry" is a poor motivation and a murky objective. State to yourself your present limitations and "dance" from there.
I used to have the very first Rebel, then I got 20D, which was a huge jump in image quality and handling. Then I got 1Dmk3 and love it to this day, though it's by many standards an 'ancient history' in the world of modern photo.
I'd say, the camera is secondary to a good glass, so you might want to consider future investments in quality lenses before you get your next camera.

What I jokingly meant was if you buy prime lens, then it's going to always have the same fixed focal length and to bring the photographed subject closer to you, you'd need to walk towards that subject or, inversely, if you're to close to the subject, you'll need to walk away from it for better framing -- something you don't need to do with zooms (or do less).
My suggestion then would be, if snapping birds is your main thing, then don't go with primes and go with the zooms. Spend as much as you can for the one with quality glass and greater reach. Considering the fact that you also specified your preference for "all-around lens", I'd say 24-105 would probably be the very minimum zoom you should consider, keeping an eye for others, with higher second number (105, 135, 200, 300, etc.). Hope that helped.

Also, if you go with primes, like 35mm or 50mm, as an added bonus, you'll shed some pounds compensating for framing issues as opposed to zoom lenses that will allow you to frame differently from the same spot. Decisions, decisions... :)

Yours is FED or FED-2?
I happened to have one now and it was also the camera my father used to photograph my brother and I when we were growing up in the 60's-70's.
Letters in FED-2 stand for Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky -- Russian first KGB leader during Lenin's era. These cameras, knock-offs of Leica, were manufactured for many years during Stalin's era, ending around 1960 and were assembled by junior workforce in Stalin's hard labor camps.
There were dozens upon dozens of various incarnations of this camera with many modifications and with casings ranging from black to yellow, green and red. Even gold-toned Asian knock-offs were made some years ago.
Predominantly FED-2s were made in Ukraine at a Kharkov's factory and to this day you can purchase them on e-Bay.
Years after my father past away and right before our family left Leningrad and immigrated to the USA back in 1979, we unfortunately had to sell our father's FED-2 for it wasn't allowed to be taken with us abroad. "Why?" is a question for the soviet customs of that era.....
...About 10 years ago, just for sentimental reasons, I wanted to find on e-Bay my father's exact model, but it just simply didn't exist. I suppose it either was a passing/in-between issue or assembled from various parts that other models simply don't combine.
Learning a lot in the process about this model, I went through literally hundreds if not thousands of models offered for sale, but none of them encompassed all of the features of our, what seemed, super-rare FED-2 body.
I did purchase a couple of bodies and I know of the lens you're speaking of, though I never gave a try to neither of the two cameras: I never shot on film and they are just for nostalgic reasons, with one being a brand new, never used, in its original red box, with all documentation, in leather case and with a standard "Industar" lens. FED-2s were made to last a lifetime - just like their Leica prototypes from which they were shamelessly ripped off...

Enjoy your new find and keep making great photos, my friend.

p.s.
Along with some other things we took with us from Leningrad back then, I also have a 'brand new' medium format Pentacon-Six TL (that never fired a single shot) with 2 Zeiss manual lenses in pristine condition (I think Sonar 180mm f/2.8 and another, possibly 85mm -- not sure).
All three pieces in their original thick and heavy leather cases.
I have to look for them, but if anybody is interested, please pm me.
Here are the photos of the 2 cameras I took a few years ago.

(Download)


(Download)

Don't know much about Nikon's weather sealing on consumer-grade cameras, but this photo was a deal breaker for me, when I went for Canon's 1DMk3. :)

Beautiful captures. Just wonder: was it absolutely necessary to have ISO 2500 as it adds a bit of noise?

Hi, all...
Following a discussion on spots in the picture someone submitted for analysis, I wanted to bring up another issue: cleaning dust on the sensor.
After all, blowing out the dust is the first action we take if we suspected the problem.
For some reason (and having been always following all Canon's guidelines on how to blow the dust from the sensor), I somehow exacerbated the issue by blowing MORE dust INTO my camera, than getting rid of it.

It started with me attempting to put in a brand new focusing screen. After replacing it, I noticed some specks of dust, fiber and tiny hairs in the viewfinder.
After energetically blowing air into the camera, (naturally upside down & not inserting the nozzle past the lens mount), things started to get progressively worse, with even more junk appearing in the viewfinder with each new treatment.
My room was clean, no drafts or fans working.

Upset, I sent the camera to Canon for their 18-point "cleaning service" with specific request that the main point for sending the camera was the dust in the viewfinder.
They returned the camera back with virtually unchanged situation, with maybe 2 specs less, though documentation stated "sensor cleaning".

This camera is 1DMk3, that Canon recently stopped servicing/supporting.
That meant that they would not go inside the camera, explaining that "if we break something, it might require parts that we may not have anymore".

After being totally dissatisfied with the initial service, I had to send the camera in for the second round on the same issue.
My extensive conversations with anybody and their mother at Canon's tech support, didn't clear the things.
One tech told me in confidence that the dust doesn't have much room to "hide" and could be EITHER BEHIND a viewfinder or ABOVE focusing screen, with a "prism in-between". And that is all!

Nevertheless, they still stated that they wouldn't even attempt to use any "invasive methods" to remove the dust -- not even unscrewing a viewfinder to blow the dust out from that end.
I received the camera back with barely noticeable improvement, but still no dice -- the dust was permanently lodged inside.
Thus, about $150 later for 18-point mostly "outside cleaning" I had the camera back in pretty much the same state as I sent it in and I'm still annoyed every time I look in the viewfinder.
Had I known that my Rocket Blower would cause so many headaches, I would have never bought it in the first place.

So, my question is: has anyone had similar experiences, where using a blower only made the matters worse?

Tx.

What a brilliant post, man!
You've nailed it BIG TIME!!!
:-))

What a brilliant post, man!
You've nailed it BIG TIME!!!
:-))

To put your mind at ease, point the camera at the clear blue sky on a sunny day and shoot it with manual focus with an f/22 aperture, and then check the image on your computer at 100%. To add an extra element of reassurance, add some super-high contrast that will bring up/highlight any artifacts. If you don't see anything, it's not your sensor, but the elements outside your camera, plus your second image doesn't have the spots you mentioned, so it's very unlikely a technical issue.
I frequently notice similar specks in the clouds when I do landscape photography and usually comparing image in question with a subsequent image, I don't see them anymore on the second one or they are in totally different spots, having different shape.
9 times out of 10 it's distant birds.