It’s time to spring-clean your camera equipment to keep it in top shape, and remove anyimage-degrading dust, dirt and grime from your optics

Keeping your camera clean and in tip-top condition will help you to get the very best image quality out of it, and regular maintenance is also essential for improving the longevity of your kit.

Interchangeable-lens systems like DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are fantastic, enabling you to swap lenses to suit the specific shooting scenario at hand. However, every time you do so you’ll open up the opportunity for dust to land on your camera sensor, which can lead to unsightly dark dust spots appearing in the brighter parts of your images, such as the sky in a landscape. While these can be removed relatively easily in Photoshop with the Clone Stamp or Spot Healing tools, this is timeconsuming and tedious to repeat for all your images. It’s a much better idea to clean your kit thoroughly, so you can spend more time out taking photos rather than fixing them back at your computer.