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Instead, purchasing a kit or product up-front and using it over and over again will offer you excellent R.O.I. "When comparing the one-time payment of $90 for an Arctic Butterfly (or even $60 for the SL700) to the cost of cleaning your camera multiple times in one year, the Butterfly comes out on top," says Tycholaz.

Of course, it's always preferable if the user can just keep their sensor as clean as possible to begin with. "VisibleDust has come up with the hypothesis that keeping your chamber area clean greatly increases the time periods between cleaning," says Tycholaz. "It's really the secret. The more cleanings you do now, the less cleanings you'll need to do in the future."

Fargo Enterprises agrees with the chamber-cleaning assessment. The company features www.ChamberCleaning.com, an educational website that explains the preventative measure of cleaning the mirror cage/chamber known as chamber cleaning. It's advocated as a preventative measure to help keep dust down and keep sensor cleaning brushes from becoming contaminated.

In the end, photographers should definitely explore the self-cleaning option. "To quote Canon Europe, 'Sensor cleaning swabs and sensor brushes are likely to have a place in the photographer's tool kit for some time to come,'" says Tycholaz.