is a frosty digital sensor possible?

[dan denmark]

happy new year to you all! here's a question that came up over a sobering discussion of film vs digital on new year's day.

is it possible to reduce 'clarity' or 'sharpness' in a digital camera by:
1. not cleaning the sensor at all
2. cleaning improperly, ie, leaving a 'film' after swabbing with lens cleaner.

the presumption was that Windex was NOT the cleanser of choice (lol) but rather proper (?) optical spectacle cleanser. or camera lens cleaner (?). or 'sensor' cleaner (?)

someone in the group had noticed a perceived loss of sharpness on their digital leica (digilux 3) with the kit lens, apparently, and someone said they were leaving a cleaning film on the sensor and causing to 'fuzz over.'

i suggested it was an issue of the afternoon and evening before (we were all shooting peple playing before dark, then the fireworks and people working hard at passing out. so a mixture of light sources and ISO ratings. many variables.)

but the question was, can this happen, a loss of 'sharpness' or clarity? i was wondering about cleaning my RD1S... but my images look the same...

this is now a heated debate which can only result in reliving the liquidity of the night before... and then more coffee...

cheers,

dd

 

[antiquark]

If there's a particle of dust on the sensor, it looks like a dark circle in the image. You can find a few examples here:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Photography-Tips/Sensor-Cleaning.aspx

I imagine if you let it get dirty enough, the picture would look like it's covered with dark blobs. Remember that the sensor window is extremely close to the sensor itself, so the optics are different than putting a regular filter on a lens.