I received in the mail yesterday a flyer touting Ultra Clean’s (by Dust-Aid) ability to evaporate and leave little residue after placing a drop directly on a sensor along with a sample for my own testing. I watched the video on their site showing an evaporation rate comparison of Dust-Aid’s Ultra Clean to it’s competitors, Sensor Clean by Visible Dust and Eclipse by Photographic Solutions.

I found it very strange that a product designed to clean isn’t being marketed by it’s cleaning ability but by its ability to evaporate. (Ultra Clean is being marketed using its major point of differences which include non-flammability, speed of evaporation and having the lowest residue after droplet evaporation, not by its similarities to other cleaning liquids.) The video was even more disturbing by it’s use of scare tactics, talking about sensor cleaning fluids making their way in-between a sensor and it’s protective filter. (Please see PhotoSol Sensor Cleaning Fact's site cleaningsensors.com and read the paragraph after #4 response which states "Because water-based solvents do not evaporate readily, they can easily seep into electronic parts, causing substantial damage.") First of all, none of the current sensor cleaning product manufacturers have you placing cleaning fluid directly on the sensor. (This was done to demonstrate the total amount of non volatile residue that is contained within a droplet of cleaning liquid. It is a quick and effective way to communicate the difference in residue levels within liquids. Chemical engineers use this simple test to quickly evaluate NVR levels of liquids.) Secondly, proper use of ALL of the sensor cleaning swabs and chemicals will not leave fluid behind to travel into unwanted places. This is just marketing scare tactics. (Please refer to our PhotoSol Sensor Cleaning Fact's comment above.)

This morning I took Dust-Aid up on their recommendations that I do my own tests to qualify their findings. But I did my tests on these products ability to clean, after all isn’t that what they are being sold to do?

In my test;

I placed a drop of camera oil on a mirror
Used an optical wipe (Pec*Pad) and made a wet spot on it the size of a quarter with the listed products then immediately went to work cleaning.
Eclipse – Cleaned the mirror and removed the oil
Eclipse E2 – Cleaned the mirror and removed the oil
Ulta Clean – Appeared to mostly just smear the oil around not cleaning the mirror
(The video above demonstrates that Ultra Clean removes oil from the sensor filter.)
Sensor Clean – Appeared to mostly just smear the oil around too and left the biggest mess behind of all.
(The video above demonstrates that Sensor Clean™ removes oil from the sensor filter.)

So my findings show that yes, Ulta Clear (Ultra Clean) evaporates faster, but it’s cleaning capabilities come nowhere close to Eclipse. (The video above shows this statement to be false.) With Ultra Clear (Ultra Clean) retailing for twice the price of Eclipse for 1/3 of the volume, you are now looking at 6 times the price of Eclipse. When you throw in Ulta Clean’s (Ultra Clean) high evaporation rate causing the need for 10 drops per swab versus Eclipse’s 3 drops per swab, your cost to wet a swab is 18 times more expensive with Ulta Clean. (You get what you pay for, a non-flammable, extremely reduced residue after evaporation, and the fastest evaporating cleaning liquid currently available.) As for my findings with Sensor Clean, it did the worst job of all 4 chemicals tested. (The video above shows this statement to be false.)

When it comes down to it, Eclipse by Photographic Solutions, the only sensor cleaning chemical endorsed by a camera manufacturer, is still the best. If you have a clean sensor with no goo on it, Ultra clean doesn’t do a bad job of shining an already clean sensor. (The video above shows this statement to be false. It should be mentioned that CleaningDigitalCameras.com does not explore the other main function of a liquid cleaner, removing welded on dust.)

Please note that CleaningDigitalCameras.com never comments on or tests for our main point of difference findings regarding residue droplet patterns after evaporation. This was the major point behind why we sent them a residue droplet flyer and a test sample, so they could qualify our findings regarding residue patterns left behind by all the liquid cleaners. The flyer had no mention of evaporation speed.

Curt Fargo

Camera Repairman
Certified Photographic Consultant
Retailer of: Visible Dust, Photographic Solutions, and Dust-Aid Products
Webmaster for: www.CleaningDigitalCameras.com