MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

My first thought was that it looks like ghost turds on my sensor since they are all in the same spots in several photos, only the opacity changes depending the light. However they are not on photos taken with different lenses so I'm guessing it's the lens but the lens looks clean, the image is cropped so the spots are actually smaller. This image was taken with the sun in front of the camera. when i look through the lens with a light in front, see a bunch of specks that look like haze but this is a brand new 150-600mm G2 thats only been out in the heat a few times.. Does anyone have some insight into this issue?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

If they don't show up with other lenses, it probably is the lens.
Sunlight entering the front of the lens will bounce off everything in the lens, yielding all kinds of internal lens lighting, which is probably lighting up dust particles in the lens. Once lit, coupled with other light coming in the lens, creates the shadows.
Only a guess though....
The front and back of the lens are clean?

cedymock Loc: Irmo, South Carolina

Had a spot much like what you are experiencing, check photos with other lenses closely as it didn’t show up as much as with the longer lens in my case. Bottom line my spot was dust on the sensor that I couldn’t see but my son found.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It's unusual for lens dirt to show up in a picture, but I guess it's possible.

Dust on lens -
http://kurtmunger.com/dirty_lens_articleid35.html
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2008/10/front-element-scratches
Inside-
http://photographylife.com/what-to-do-with-dust-inside-lens

Dust inside -
https://photographylife.com/what-to-do-with-dust-inside-lens

nikon_jon Loc: Northeast Arkansas

Dirt on your sensor. Dirt on a lens seldom shows up on a photo. Only exception is that if there is enough dirt on a lens it will give the pic a hazy look. The lens elements are out of the range of focus on a lens, so dirt or spots on a lens do not manifest as spots on the photo. The dirt or dust or whatever will interfere with the transmission of light, thus the hazy look. Even so, it takes a lot of dirt to do this. On the other hand dirt on the sensor will keep the focused light from being clearly registered on the sensor. Cleaning a sensor is not rocket science. Do some research, buy a kit and see if cleaning the sensor helps, or eliminates the problem.

On a side note, this was seldom a problem in film photography. Dirt gets on the inside of a camera when you change lenses, so in the case of film photog, you might get only a small bit on one frame of film. If there was some serious grit embedded on the felt lips of the 35mm film cartridge, you could get a scratch on the whole length of the roll as it went through the camera, but I have seldom seen this happen.

Some basics of changing lenses on digitals is to try to do it only in a fairly dust-free environment and hold the camera facing toward the ground when you change lenses.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Also a distinct possibility for MauiMoto's situation since they are gray (dark).

Using a different lens to compare has to been used under the same conditions as the suspect lens. Shooting something different totally ruins the test and comparison.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

Had the same thing. Dirt on the sensor.

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

Yes, that makes sense, I just thought it would make bigger spots since it's so far from the sensor, especially at 600mm.

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

Guess it couldn't hurt to clean the sensor, can I use plain alcohol or do I need some fancy solution?

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

Got it, thank you.

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

Thanks for the info

EnglishBrenda Loc: Kent, England

Use the proper cleaning agents, there are lots of Youtube videos and posts on this forum about the procedure.

techwolf Loc: Edgewater, Fl

Did you recently clean the sensor? I had this problem on my Pentax K3-ii. My sunrise pics had those same spots especially visible in the blue areas. I was worried that my sensor was going bad since the spots looked bigger than what dust would create. Then I remembered that I had just cleaned the sensor. I cleaned it again using less cleaning solution and they went away. This meant that I must have used more cleaning solution than the swab could pick up and those dried as water spots.



quote=MauiMoto]My first thought was that it looks like ghost turds on my sensor since they are all in the same spots in several photos, only the opacity changes depending the light. However they are not on photos taken with different lenses so I'm guessing it's the lens but the lens looks clean, the image is cropped so the spots are actually smaller. This image was taken with the sun in front of the camera. when i look through the lens with a light in front, see a bunch of specks that look like haze but this is a brand new 150-600mm G2 thats only been out in the heat a few times.. Does anyone have some insight into this issue?[/quote]

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

This is unquestionably dust on the sensor. If you take your other lenses and point the camera at blue sky, you will see the spots - in the same locations. Spots of dust in the lens is more likely to look like blotches of reduced contrast.

TomV Loc: Annapolis, Maryland

The reason you see them on some photo/lens combinations has a lot to do with the f stop setting. The smaller the aperture the smaller, darker the specs become.

Experiment with the camera settings and lenses before you clean the sensor and that way you can better see the impact.