Lock up your mirror

Once you have read the manufacturer's cleaning instructions, turn your camera on and set it to cleaning mode. It's essential that the camera remains on--if the power goes off, the shutter curtain will drop.

If it closes on any of your cleaning tools, the shutter curtain and mirror could be damaged, and that's not good at all. So make sure the battery is fully charged or, even better, attach your dSLR to the AC adapter.

The mirror, a clear piece of glass angled in the front of the exposed camera, will flip up. You don't need to worry about cleaning this as it doesn't affect image quality. When you put the camera into cleaning mode, the shutter curtain will also flip and the sensor is exposed--sort of.

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