Originally Posted by
thed Care to elaborate on how you removed it? How much of a chance is there of damaging the actual lens without the plastic there to protect it?
Use an Xacto knife and go real slow. The clear plastic piece is quite a bit bigger than the round area you see, so it will take some time. It's pretty much impossible to damage the actual lens since there is appears to be a piece of glass covering the ccd. You really just have a gaping hole that will collect dust. I clean mine out about once a week. Even with this, it's better than unusable photos.
I've attached another picture from an HD7 that had the same trick done to it.