A lot of phone cameras seem to have come through (apparently) unscathed. Both pictures and video. Too small a collector/concentrator, or enough shaking because hand-held to keep the focal point moving?
Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
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Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#92It's a shame that Lens Rentals had to suffer such material loss, but that report is absolute gold-plated first-hand evidence for my perennial debates with other photographers who insist that they don't need Solar protection for eclipses. "But I took a landscape shot at midday with the Sun in frame and it didn't melt my sensor". The difference being the length of exposure and the concentrations of energy.
Just to clarify, there’s no concentration of energy involved with the eclipse itself. The concentration involved is no different than setting a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass on a regular day. The sun isn’t a garden hose. Putting something in front of it doesn’t make the edges more intense.
> The concentration involved is no different than setting a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass on a regular day.
That's what they're saying. Zooming in on the sun vs the sun happening to be in-frame.
Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#93It's a shame that Lens Rentals had to suffer such material loss, but that report is absolute gold-plated first-hand evidence for my perennial debates with other photographers who insist that they don't need Solar protection for eclipses. "But I took a landscape shot at midday with the Sun in frame and it didn't melt my sensor". The difference being the length of exposure and the concentrations of energy.
Just to clarify, there’s no concentration of energy involved with the eclipse itself. The concentration involved is no different than setting a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass on a regular day. The sun isn’t a garden hose. Putting something in front of it doesn’t make the edges more intense.
Dingaling is talking about the light being concentrated on certain areas of the sensor. Because the total/average brightness is low, the exposure ends up being much longer then at normal conditions, causing damage to the areas where the light is concentrated. Under normal conditions, the light will be less concentrated on certain spots, so even though there is much more light in total, the camera will choose an appropriate exposure that will prevent damage to the sensor.
Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#94Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish the blog post had talked more about that. I'm curious about their repair process. What capabilities do they have in house? Can they replace a broken sensor?
I know about 12 years ago I blew the firewire connection on my video camera (Canon xm2), and to fix it they would have to replace the full board. So I feel like they don't make them repairable.
Yet with a heat gun its an easy fix.
It depends on their expertise
Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#96It's a shame that Lens Rentals had to suffer such material loss, but that report is absolute gold-plated first-hand evidence for my perennial debates with other photographers who insist that they don't need Solar protection for eclipses. "But I took a landscape shot at midday with the Sun in frame and it didn't melt my sensor". The difference being the length of exposure and the concentrations of energy.
Just to clarify, there’s no concentration of energy involved with the eclipse itself. The concentration involved is no different than setting a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass on a regular day. The sun isn’t a garden hose. Putting something in front of it doesn’t make the edges more intense.
There kind of is, because it's darker when the sun is partially covered, so you'll use a larger aperture or longer exposure than you would normally. This is also why it's more dangerous to look at the sun during an eclipse than it is normally: your iris opens wider during an eclipse because it's not as bright.
Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish the blog post had talked more about that. I'm curious about their repair process. What capabilities do they have in house? Can they replace a broken sensor?
I know about 12 years ago I blew the firewire connection on my video camera (Canon xm2), and to fix it they would have to replace the full board. So I feel like they don't make them repairable.
There are a lot of things that a professional repair shop focused on a particular type of equipment may be able to do that aren't practical for anyone else - including manufacturer repair facilities. Louis Rossman is a bit entertaining on this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ocF_hrr83Oc
Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#98Now 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 was recently party to a conversation where someone was saying that they couldn't find eclipse glasses in the store, so they had to "look through a Ritz cracker, like they said on the news". I figured they meant use it as a pinhole lens, but they continued saying that the sun was still pretty bright even using the cracker. I didn't want to blow up the spot by clarifying/correcting (and it's not like I could have pre…
This is amazing!, while I would never advise this as an option, it probably would be fine
Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#99Re: Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people don't mount their cell phones to tripods or celestial tracking mounts so there's enough movement it would never be an issue. It would be interesting to mount one to a celestial tracking mount and see what happens. Honestly, I've got some old cell phones laying around here and might just give that a try.
That would be really cool to see! /u/tzs posted some links, so it looks like people a somewhat unsure. I'm guessing that if the sun is well tracked in the center for long enough that it would damage the lens. I guess we don't have a ton of hard data for it.
So I've photographed lasers a bunch and burned a few sensors, I guess I should toss in my experience. As far as I can tell, it really depends on the specific phone that you're using, and also the damage is usually fairly minimal. I've damaged fancy sensors with lasers and they almost always have major problems afterwards, but for years I used a phone with a very severe amount of laser damage to the sensor and the photos were quite good and the damage was barely noticeable (as a series of black lines on the image.) There was no damage to the lens.
I also doubt it would be the lens damaged in the case of a smartphone. The lenses are built to take a tremendous amount of abuse and almost certainly would be fine. The sensors are by far the more fragile component.