Can you damage an XL2 by shooting lasers - YES!!!!
 

So I have a job right now making a TV commercial for a plastic surtion. He wanted some footage of laser Tattoo removal in the spot.

For the shoot we all had to wear protective glasses so the light would not hurt our eyes. Apparently this laser projects very bright colored green light out of it. -I could have never known in a million years that this could damage the XL2 camcorder! :(

I zoomed in right on the laser beam that comes out. It sort of zaps one after
another burning off the skin that contains the tattoo. Very soon I noticed that playback of everything I have recorded sence has, what apears to be green dots burned into the center of the image.

It is very noticeable, and not something you can just ignore. Seems to be missing about 10 - 15 pixels right in the middle. They are burned in green the color of the laser. - Anyway, is this something that can be fixed? What part of the cam do you think is broken??? :undecided

Tyson.

Pixels in one or more of the three CCD image sensors in the XL2's CCD block have been damaged by the laser. You'll need to send the camcorder to the Canon Factory Service center in either Jamesburg, NJ or Irvine, CA for a repair estimate. Call 1-800-828-4040 for contact info.

I guess the rule-of-thumb would be:

If the human eye requires protection (glasses, goggles, etc.),
the cam lens requires protection (filter).

This would hold true for filming the sun during eclipse, lasers, tig welders, etc.

And actually the CCD block (equivalent to the human retina) is more delicate than the lens.

I certainly would not hesitate to ask the doctor to cover the cost or repair, or part of it, anyway.

Jay

Really? I don't do too many paid video gigs, but what if someone hired me to shoot a scuba diving expedition and I jumped in the water with an unprotected cam? As the professinal videographer hired for the job, wouldn't they expect me to know how to protect and use my gear? Wouldn't I look unprofessional if I tried to collect a repair bill for the water soaked cam?

Granted, tattoo lasers may not seem as obviously harmful as deep sea diving :) But still, when the doctor had everyone wear eye protection, wouldn't it have been prudent for the shooter to say something like "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the laser would be so intense. I'm going to have to verify that these light levels aren't going to damage my video equipment before we can tape this."

Then he could have asked for advice here and found out that the laser would almost certainly damage his CCD blocks before the damage was done.

I just would really be surprised if the doctor paid for part of the repair. I mean he did his job by making sure that everyone's eyes were protected. Its really not his responsibility to know what the videographer's camera can handle.

As a similar example, if a scientist hires you to shoot a solar eclipse, aren't you going to make sure your camera is equipped to tape that? If not, is it the scientist's fault?

Philip Williams
www.philipwilliams.com

Hopefully you had some kind of production insurance?

So, having a very limited knowledge of filters, I'll be the first to ask, exactly what kind of filter should he have used? I'm under the impression it's not as simple as putting a ND in front of the lens. Are there filters that will reject certain types of rays to be able to handle eclipses, lasers and what not without damaging the CCD block? Is there a filter designed specifically for this use?

Wow, guess I've been lucky! I shot quite a bit of welding work once (MIG actually, not TIG, but I can't imagine the difference would matter to a CCD) and didn't even think of protecting the lense. I didn't have any negative results from the shooting, and I've shot 8+ hours of footage since then with no noticable CCD problem areas.

Hmm...I wonder what kind of filter I should use in the future?

I'd imagine that for the laser shot you could have just used some gaffers tape to tape a pair of goggles to the lens. It might not have worked, but it might have been worth a shot to protect the lens.

For welding, I'd think a piece of Welder's Helmet glass would work well. You can buy it at some welding supply places.

Replacing the ccd block should run about 650 bucks, I've done it before.

Duane,

Welding might not be bright enough that the iris can't compensate. But I would be leary of exposing the lens/CCDs to any light source outside that for which it was intended, namely light which the human eye can see.

I'd use the same protection used to protect the human eye.

Thanks for posting this Tyson. I think it's very important to know about, especially if higher end cameras could be damaged. I have recently worked on a show for Discovery Health Channel, Plastic Surgery Before & After, a few times featuring an Atlanta doctor, what a coincidence. Occassionally, a laser has been used but no damaging effects were noticed. We have shot with a PD-150 and a DSR 570. I will have to check into this further.

I have also shot some welding with my XL-1. I don't know if it MIG or TIG. It wasn't very long, maybe 10-20 seconds and I haven't noticed any visible damage from that. I will certainly be more aware now because of your post.

As far as the doctor being at all liable, I would have to agree with Philip. I think the doctor should only be responsible for his environment and the known effects of a laser to tissue and obvious effects to direct contact with other objects. But, I don't think he can be held responsible for having to know about the sesitivity to all other electronic gear. I think Canon should have tested for things like this and included warnings in its manual. You may want to mention this to them. This is one of those situations where you're just going to have to eat it and just be that much more knowledgeable.

I've also shot welders (including plasma welder) using both XL1 and XL2 with no noticable damage to either camera.

Michael Hamilton

Tyson, I just thought about something. Did you have a UV filter attached to your front element or were you shooting with a bare lens? I use the typical Tiffen UV filter and maybe that's why I didn't experience any damage from shooting welding or I was just lucky. I don't know the strength of mine but it mainly protects the front element from debris. Maybe there are stronger ones that can protect against certain bands of laser light. I wonder what the shooters on these build out shows use when shooting all that welding on motorcycles and cars? I remember back with tube cameras that shooting any bright source was a no no because of burn in.

When I was shooting all the welding footage, I had a UV filter on, but no ND filter. I wonder if I popped on my ND4 if that would be sufficient protection? Or maybe even a darker ND filter? I can compensate for the ND filter, but there's no way I could compensate for the nearly solid-black Welder's Mask glass. At that point, I might as well not even shoot the footage.

I certainly won't be shooting any lasers now, after reading this thread.

Tyson, did you shoot the laser head on or just the bounced light that it emits from the side? I think it would have to be a direct hit to burn your CCDs.

Laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The light from a laser can be of just about any wavelength from infrared through visible through ultraviolet and is typically collimated (made into a coherent beam) to yield a surprisingly high power for the amount of energy expended to create the light (high efficiency).

The only way to know how to protect yourself or the camera is to know the specific wavelength, pulse length, and energy of the laser. Then an appropriate filter can be used. A filter that is totally opaque in the visible light frequencies might be entirely transparent to an IR or UV laser, for example.

Lasers are so ubiquitous and have been making so much news lately that we all know they can be dangerous. I have to agree with others, that although the doctor apparently did take appropriate precautions for human safety in his laser suite, your equipment and its use are a bit beyond his scope of responsibility. Ultimately it was up to you to consider dangers to your gear when going into an unusual environment. The XL2 manual does warn in a couple of places not to expose the viewfinder or lenses to direct sunlight or other bright sources of light...hope replacement of the CCD block isn't TOO expensive. :-( Chalk it up to "live and learn."

I was and always use a UV filter on the front of my lens from the very moment I opend the cam out of the box. I asume a UV filter only protects aginst ultra violet light that we cant see - and this laser light you can definatly see-

No, the laser was not pointing directly into the camera, as it disolves fleash with any color in it. ie>The tatoo. The light comes out of the emitter and I guess bounces off the skin of the patient. Like a green strobe light. -And maybe we shouldnt be video taping strobe lights either...

I was never considering asking the doctor to pay for the equipment...that would be a moraly jerk thing to do... and I back up all of your reasons why not to ask him to pay for it - to those that think I should. - I probably wont even tell him it happend out of proffesionalism.

As for Pete Bauer, who said:

"The XL2 manual does warn in a couple of places not to expose the viewfinder or lenses to direct sunlight or other bright sources of light"

Pete, I have checed the manuel and I cant seem to find any mention of any light behing harmful to the camera (at least not from normal shooting purposes) not in the safty insturctions or on the warenty card. - What page do you see this on -if you dont mind?

It only says on p.19 that the viewfinder LCD could be damaged by sunlight due to maginfication threw the lens (like army soldiers and a magnifying glass I guess)...

On page 22 -it says when mounting/unmouthing the lens not to do so in direct sunlight or around bright light.

But no mention I cant find of being able to damage the cam due to shooting bright lights... Some have sugested I may have a legal elbow to threaten the law if I am made to pay for this...and again its only lasted 9 months. But I have do do my research and find out if they did warn us against this sort of thing.

Just think, crazier cases have won. Think of the woman who sued McDonald casue she spilled hot coffie on her lap. Perhaps Canon should have warned us all about laser light...

Sorry, but see page 108:

"Do not point the lens or viewfinder at strong light sources. Do not leave the camcorder pointed at a bright subject."

Just a quick update for anyone interested in this thread, Tyson has lost track of us but did respond on another site that Canon replaced the entire CCD block free of charge as a warranty repair. Not bad considering the circumstances!

Let him Know!
 

Tyson,

Even if you don't feel right trying to charge the doctor for the damage, and even thought you got it fixed under warranty, I think that you should let the doctor know what happened. He might call another unsuspecting person to do the same job at another time.

I sure a filter of some kind would stop the problem, but he needs to know this.

Mike

Do you think that he told Canon what really happened?

Chris, I remember when I shot my music video a couple years back with the XL1S I remembered to read the manual because I wanted to do the standard "Terminator" shot where an assassin had a laser dot sight pointed at the POV. The manual then warned against bright light, etc. (maybe it was the very same manual) so I told the actor to point it just off the lens and I was careful that the laser pointer was never pointed at anyone else's eyes.

Tyson's example is a bit different as the laser bounced off something else.

I dunno, but I'd be surprised if nobody at Canon had read his post here. Beyond that, it is a matter of whether the left hand knows what the right hand is doing -- an uncertain premise in any corporate bureaucracy. Good of them to do the work for free, in any case.