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Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

lensrentals.com

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Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#81

Post by thesmallestcat »

f_allwein wrote: post #41
jmiserez wrote: post #2

Now imagine that kind of damage being done to your eyes. It hurts just thinking about it, yet some people don’t seem to really believe the warnings.

I just googled for reports on the eclipse's aftermath the other day, and there seemed to be noting about widespread eye damage (or I did not search hard enough). It was interesting how most of the post-eclipse reporting was hijacked by a certain politician not wearing his glasses (probably he only looked for a split second anyway). Anyway, this eclipsed (sorry) any reports about the actual event, which must have been…

> Lawsuit: Amazon sold eclipse glasses that cause "permanent" blindness"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-s...

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#82

Post by 4ad »

lostlogin wrote: post #75
grepthisab wrote: post #3

Interesting! My assumption is that this could not happen with a phone camera though, correct? Because then one would think just leaving one's phone face down on the table in sunlight would ruin it.

A thread higher up discusses the damage being related to the aperture size - phones have a tiny aperture.

Not really, the light flux is not really related to the physical aperture (diameter of the lens), but rather to the f-number of the lens (what photographers usually call "aperture" is in fact the f-number, focal length divided by lens aperture), an iPhone has an f/1.7 lens. This is an extremely fast lens, faster than any any zoom on a DSLR. Only dedicated prime lenses are faster.

The flux is:

    Φ/4α² * 1/A²
Total energy does depend on actual aperture though. Total power is:

    Φ/4πα * D²
Where D is a diameter of the lens.

As a first approximation, the sensor can support a certain flux, but once that regime is exceeded the damage is proportional to the energy, not to the flux. So if we talk about the regime where the sensor is not destroyed, flux is the relevant metric, but a larger lens will likely cause more damage once damage actually occurs.

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#83

Post by FICO »

monochromatic wrote: post #69
selectodude wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can feign ignorance. It doesn't change the fact that the lens has a burn hole on it now.

Deny, deny, deny.

Ah, yes, the Shaggy defense [1]. It's is rarely is successful in practice though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_defense

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#84

Post by nazz »

I was shooting with a d800 200mm lens, no filter. There is no visible sensor damage, both when examining images and the sensor itself. I have to check out the lens. I left it on the sun for a good 20 minutes in live view but there doesn't seem to be any damage. Thoughts?

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#85

Post by justin66 »

mindslight wrote: post #36
justin66 wrote: post #26

The amusing bit is at the end, where the author tacitly admits that their add-on camera insurance is somewhat crap. Someone who damaged a rental camera by pointing it at the eclipse would, ironically, have been better off if they then proceeded to "accidentally" drop the camera from a height onto concrete: Unfortunately, these types of damage are considered neglect, as warnings were given out to customers before the…

A camera is repairable, so it's not like they throw out the entire "broken" item. Dropping the camera would have just created a second problem. It's an interesting line, between accident and neglect. Reading the article, my initial reaction was that it is ridiculous for their insurance to not cover this damage. But yet in general I do enjoy the non-diligent actually retaining some moral hazard. This "absent agency" p…

> A camera is repairable, so it's not like they throw out the entire "broken" item. Dropping the camera would have just created a second problem.

That's the irony about insurance that I was pointing out. The much worse situation would have been covered.

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#86

Post by 549362-30499 »

nazz wrote: post #84

I was shooting with a d800 200mm lens, no filter. There is no visible sensor damage, both when examining images and the sensor itself. I have to check out the lens. I left it on the sun for a good 20 minutes in live view but there doesn't seem to be any damage. Thoughts?

Were you using a motorized tripod set to track the sun? I would guess that was the cause of the most extreme damage.

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#87

Post by nateroling »

tedunangst wrote: post #37
csomar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of the things returned, we were equally impressed with our customer-base, and their guilt and owning up to the damage. I thought the renters would be paying for it?

They still probably lose out on some revenue until a replacement is in stock. Having a working lens is always better for business than getting reimbursed to buy a replacement lens. (That's the nature of the business, though.)

He mentions in the article they rented out “thousands” of lenses. I’m guessing the few lenses they have to repair because of this is barely over their normal repair load.

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#88

Post by nateroling »

justin66 wrote: post #26

The amusing bit is at the end, where the author tacitly admits that their add-on camera insurance is somewhat crap. Someone who damaged a rental camera by pointing it at the eclipse would, ironically, have been better off if they then proceeded to "accidentally" drop the camera from a height onto concrete: Unfortunately, these types of damage are considered neglect, as warnings were given out to customers before the…

They were very upfront about the fact that eclipse damage would not be covered.

They also don’t cover damage from Color Runs, and they’re upfront about that too.

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#89

Post by sdwisely »

matthewrudy wrote: post #68
fencepost wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an in-house repair shop that dealt with most or all of it, and they charge the customer for the cost of the repair. From the comments the fact that they don't gouge on repairs is one reason some folks use them.

How do you fix a burnt cmos sensor? I feel like canon would charge you near enough the full replacement price.

I'd imagine it's a fairly common replacement. I've seen event photographers do it quite a few times putting their cameras near lasers.

Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse

#90

Post by gruez »

tzs wrote: post #25
grepthisab wrote: post #3

Interesting! My assumption is that this could not happen with a phone camera though, correct? Because then one would think just leaving one's phone face down on the table in sunlight would ruin it.

The most common expert opinion seems to be that photographing the Sun with a smartphone camera won't damage it. Here's a NASA document on this: [1] A Chicago Tribune story [2] cited the WSJ [3] saying that Apple said that eclipse photography would not hurt an iPhone. Forbes says that recent generations of iPhone have sensors and lenses just big enough to cause damage if you point them at the Sun for more than a coupl…

>Forbes says that recent generations of iPhone have sensors and lenses just big enough to cause damage if you point them at the Sun for more than a couple seconds, but that selfies that include the Sun are fine because the front camera and sensor are small [4].

i don't buy it. phones get their rear cameras pointed towards to the sun all the time. all it takes is you putting the phone on its back out in the sun. you'd be hearing thousands of reports iphone cameras mysteriously getting damaaged. not to mention that it's not really forbes saying that, it's some blogger that forbes sold its name to (a practice they're infamous for)

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