Countdown: 10, 9, 8...

A lot of customers have been asking about the actual size of the Giotto rocket cleaning blower. The heading image shows it against a USAF Titan IIIC missile. Some people may need to make a little more space in their camera bags than before... My own recent experience chasing the Dust Bunny From Hell has led to a greater respect for this Giotto Kit. It is not a substitute for careful cleaning by a qualified technician, but it does go a long way to increasing the service life of your camera between those workshop cleaning visits. In the case of the DBFH, I would have been able to banish it entirely with this Giotto kit. First line of attack is not rocketry - it is not even this kit. Your first line of attack is a perfectly clean old linen handkerchief that has been encased in a plastic bag overnight with 5 drops of water. The water is to ever-so-slightly dampen the hanky - so slightly that you do not detect it yourself - but enough to let the cloth act as a " tack rag " for dust on the outer surface of your camera and lens. Rub and scrub until you are sure it is clean. Then take one of the Q-tip swabs in this kit, dampen it with a spritz from the cleaning solution bottle, and rub it round the still-sealed lens mount ring near the body of the camera. Look on the result with horror, but congratulate yourself that when you actually do crack the lens/body seal, that you are not going to drive the stuff you see into the body. Once you have made the rough outside as clean as you can, you can go inside. You can't touch the sensor of the camera but you can hold the body upside down and use the Rocket to blow dust off it. If you are silly and do this in a dusty atmosphere, you'll blow it on the sensor, and we'll see you in the repair department on Monday. But you won't be that silly... The inside glass of the lens needs a careful brush from that sable hair and then a wipe from the micro-cloth lightly dampened with the spray bottle. Lightly is the word. You're trying to make sure that whatever you seal into the body is as clean as the sensor itself. Once the inside is good, go to the front element of the lens and sable brush all dust off it, then damp-wipe it as you did with the rear element. Then, for at least a minute, you will have a clean camera and a chance at spot-free images. Then the dog will sneeze and the game starts again. Just get a Giotto kit and resign yourself to the routine. Note: The Titan IIIC is a scale model. We have not been able to scale down the actual payload, though, so it still leaves a smoking hole the size of Geraldton when it comes down, but we try to aim it away from populous areas.