One of the reasons we replaced our old camera ( an Olympus C-750) was because there was dust particles on the lens. In the photo above you can see one of the particles just above the sun. This lens is sealed and requires taking the entire camera apart which is why this hasn’t been done until now. There are other reasons we upgraded cameras but this was the catalyst that dictated when.

I’ve been known to dismantle electronics before and get them back together successfully most of the time so why not give a digital camera a try. How hard could it be? Besides I came across a website with information on cleaning the lens on a similar camera to this one with nice pictures and everything. Didn’t look to terribly difficult. After some searching for a few screws I managed to get it apart without breaking anything as you can see in the photo above. That’s always a good start. There were 4 screws that hiding making it a bit of a challenge but once I found them all went pretty well. The lens is that black tube with some ribbons coming out of it.

After some thorough but gentle cleaning I got it all back together. Now the final test is does it all work. The photo below was taken with this camera and there is no more dust visible on the lens. It may have taken a couple of weekends to accomplish the cleaning but I learned a lot about point and shoot cameras along with more capabilities that I didn’t know this model has. I always knew it was a good camera but there’s more versatility than I ever imagined using the manual modes. Certainly not SLR quality but better than most point and shoot cameras.