General Camera Maintenance

• General Camera Maintenance starts with general camera maintenance - 'Clean the outside of the camera by wiping with a clean, dry cloth. Never use harsh or abrasive cleaners or organic solvents on the camera or any of its parts.'
• Luminous Landscapes - Understanding Digital SLR Sensor Cleaning tackles the tricky question of how to clean imaging sensors. Here is an excerpt from their detailed description (make sure you read the whole thing before very carefully proceeding) - 'Situate yourself at a table with a
  bright overhead light or gooseneck desk lamp. Set your camera so that it is in sensor cleaning mode with the sensor exposed. (Some cameras require that they be plugged into AC power for this). Using either a hand blower bulb or a CO2 blower gently blow away any lose visible dust. If you have a jewler's eye loup this can be helpful in seeing what you're doing. Don't over do it with blowing, and don't let anything touch the sensor. Never blow into the camera with your mouth.'
• By Thom - Cleaning your CCD also tackles the topic of cleaning your CCD image sensor writing 'A lot has been written about different cleaning techniques, such as using an air compressor or a small turkey baster type of hand blower as suggested by Nikon, but eventually you'll find some dust that so stubbornly sticks to the CCD that it forces you to use the "wet method": a light swipe of a lint-free cloth that�s been wet with a small bit of methanol. The dampness grabs the dust and makes it adhere to the cloth rather than the filter. You use lint-free material because you don�t want to generate more specks to clean off (trust me on that one--I decided to see how bad a regular cloth would be, and ending up spending most of an afternoon trying to get rid of all the residual threads and spots left behind). Methanol is the liquid of choice as it is less prone to leaving water streaks behind (contrary to popular opinion, methanol can pick up water vapor, though it does so less readily than isopropyl alcohol).'