Hi Mike,

Thanks for the question. I have several reasons why I do not believe these are dust spots.

1. I rarely detach my lens from the body, especially when I'm away from home. I use a D90 for telephoto shots.

2. The spots showed up all of a sudden, although I have the dust removal function turned on.

3. Neither the dust removal function nor numerous blasts with the Rocket Blower helped.

4. Some of the spots have a "ring" like light perimeter. (See image below.) The fringe of the liquid seems to be refracting the light. (Strictly my conjecture.)

5. The spots are quite small and hardly noticeable on a monitor. Once I started looking for them, they were all over the top third of the images -- bottom third of the sensor -- not the entire sensor.

6. The technician at BorrowedLenses.com who cleaned the sensor the first time mentioned that it was his "toughest ever cleaning job." He had to apply the cleaning fluid numerous times to "soften" the larger spots. This leads me to believe that the grease had dried up. (Again, conjecture on my part.)

7. When it happened the second time, I dropped off the body at Nikon's Service Center at Melville, NY. The service order stated, "CCD CLEANING GREASE SPOTS ON SENSOR" The service write up did not contradict this and added "CKD OVER HAUL". I dropped it off on September 9. It was not ready for pick up until September 22. A simple dust removal should have taken less time and wouldn't have required an overhaul.

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