photo question

Some good DLSR's have a sensor clean function which is a high frequency vibration to shake the dust of sensor.

It certainly looks like dust on the sensor, but I'd double check your lens--possible it could have been water (or crud).

I had some of these develop in my G9. It was dust inside the lens and I had to send it back to Canon for a $150 repair. While you can repair them somewhat (these examples it would be easy and not a problem, but if the spot is over a person's face etc. not so good), if you are picky it isn't ok to have all your pictures compromised like that.

JimD's right, of course, but I still lean toward the "it's not a big problem" side. Try this test: Take a few pictures where the area occupied by the spots is not filled by fog or blue sky.  My guess is that you will have a hard time finding the spots at all. That's what I've observed with the gunk in my compact camera.

Take a few pictures where the area occupied by the spots is not filled by fog or blue sky.  My guess is that you will have a hard time finding the spots at all.

I'm pretty sure your right, and even in those type of photos the spots don't always appear. I played with the Picasa retouch function and it works pretty well, so I'm not going to worry about it for now. Also, I'm not ready to give up on this compact, it being one of the last with an optical view finder.

One trick is to keep a bigger fstop (between f11 and f1.4), especially in bright conditions. This will limit the amount of spots that show up. As has been noted, less sky will hide these spots better as well. Also having better exposure compensation will help, especially when shooting in snow. In the above photos case, something like +1 f-stop would be beneficial.

The best fix is to clean it though.