Can one damage the HD100 with the sun?

[Adam Craig]

Remember when you were a kid and used a magnifying glass on a leaf to burn it?
That was focusing that wide area of sun to a smaller area, thus concentrating the light. Your lens does the same thing only it passes through several maginifying glasses. So you effectivly, rather than a ant or leaf you are focusing the sun on your $6,000+ CCDS. It probaly won't get hot enough to do damage, but it's still a bit silly. I would reccomend using a Glass ND filter of you must get the shot.

my 2 cents.

[Robert Schaller]

Adam Craig put my dilemma clearly:

"Remember when you were a kid and used a magnifying glass on a leaf to burn it? That was focusing that wide area of sun to a smaller area, thus concentrating the light. Your lens does the same thing only it passes through several maginifying glasses. So you effectivly, rather than a ant or leaf you are focusing the sun on your $6,000+ CCDS."

This leads me to wonder about what John Mitchel describes:

"CCD's seem to be more prone to gamma length radiation (ie that experienced at high altitude in an aircraft) - no doubt prolonged overexposure to high UV could damage them, but ND'd down correctly and with a single UV filter should be fine."

I certainly will take these precautions in the future, but I'm afraid that I already shot the sun (at least, at max telephoto and with a Haze 1 "lens protector" filter that Tiffen claims absorbs almost 3/4 of UV light) without thinking about it, and of course shutter speed is irrelevant, and I did it at 8,200 feet, which probably counts as "high altitude."

So, my concern is about what I may have already done. I know what to do next time (and thanks to all for their suggestions!)!

What Jiri Bakala says is reassuring,

"I have never heard of damage to a CCD camera caused by shooting the sun."

I hope that his never having heard is because it doesn't happen, but intuitively I am nervous. Testing and time will tell. But, if anyone has ever heard of such damage, I would like to hear about it.

Thanks,

Robert Schaller

[Stephan Ahonen]

I've got an idea. Detach the lens from the camera and hold it up pointing at the sun so that it's focusing the light on a thermometer bulb. Now we can see exactly how much energy is getting transmitted to the CCD.

[Steve Oakley]

gamma radiation damage shows up as bad pixels. to do this, you need to put the camera on a plane. the fix is the dead pixel mask routine to remove them.

AFA shooting the sun, I put several hours on my 327A a few years back shooting elciplses, with welders ND filter and no extra filter. no damage. YMMV, but I would not expect a problem. Again, its making the image of the sun SMALL that is of potential harm - meaning a wide angle shot, not a full the frame long lens shot. I would not worry about it. we put wide angle lenses onto cameras everyday with the sun in the shot - is there ever a problem ? ( tube cameras excluded :) ).. nope.

Steve Oakley

[Jonathan Nelson]

just don't look threw the vf, could damage your eyes from the uv rays.

[Joel Aaron]

I'm thinking this is the kind of thing visual effects were invented for. And rental shops.

[K. Forman]

Or cheap cameras.

[Jiri Bakala]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Nelson

just don't look threw the vf, could damage your eyes from the uv rays.

I am sorry Jonathan but what you are saying makes no sense for electronic cameras - what you are viewing is a small LCD or tube screen and it's no different than watching TV. There are NO UV rays going through the electronic VF or LCD display. Only optical systems may be a cause for concern and I would check with an experienced photographer or film DP. I suspect there is lot less to worry about that we might think...