The Can Of Air - Falcon To The Rescue

For years we have sold the Dust-Off brand of canned air made by Falcon. These are the familiar blue and white aerosol cans with the black tops and the red extension tubes that are racked up in the ink,  paper, and chemistry section at the back of the shop.

I guess they aren't actually aerosols - they are compressed air in there. The cans have traditionally cost $ 25 and last for ages in most applications. Good steady seller.

Originally the only use for them I conceived was in printing negatives in an enlarger. The Dust Off can was used to spray over the top surface and under surface of the negative in the holder to blow away dust.

The enlarger has been gone for years but the Dust Off remains - because I have found a raft of new photographic uses for it:

a. Spray the dust off the platen of the Epson V700 scanner. It's a large glass surface and attracts gunk via static electricity. I wipe it with an anti-stat cloth and then the Dust Off and it is pristine.
 The negs and slide also get the spray treatment.

b. It is ideal for blasting dust and grit from the OUTSIDE of cameras prior to changing lenses. Don't use it on the interior mirror or sensor area.

c. Clean the swarf out of the battery compartments on the flash units.

d. Likewise fire the dirt out of the recesses of the Epson R3000 printer. One good trick as well is to keep the R3000 swaddled in the plastic cover it came with in the delivery box. Looks naff but keeps the thing cleaner.

e. When the computer gets dusty inside and runs hot you can blow a blast of air through to to give the cooling fins and fans some help. The Dust Off bottle becomes cold by the expansion of the gas and then you can hold it against the hot section of the outer case of the computer for quick thermal relief.

f. Dust that lens off.

g. Make frothy coffee at the computer desk.

Plus it looks like something out of Game Of Thrones...

Light The Blue Touch Paper And Retire

In the dear old days of film photography we used this fine product to do many things:

Cleaning dust from the inside of mirror boxes and rangefinder housings.
Cleaning dust from negatives on the holder in the enlarger.
Preliminary dust blasting for the outside of bodies and lenses.
Making soap bubbles in product shots.
Annoying other darkroom workers.

Now we are in the digital age and the uses become a little more vague. We can only think of a few.

External  dusting of cameras.
Dusting off the glass plates of flat-bed scanners.
Annoying other computer room workers.

Our technician recoils in horror at the idea of anyone blasting one of these air/propellant bombs at the surface of a digital sensor - and rightly so. The amount of gudgey damage and contamination you could do would be tremendous. Urrrg. Aaack.

So we would be delighted if our readers of the blog or the Facebook page would write in and tell us what we can do with our Dust-Off.

Go on. You know you want to.