The Solar Eclipse of 2017 Destroyed Lots of Rental Camera Gear (petapixel.com)

Despite numerous warnings sent out to renters, a number of LensRental's camera equipment came back damaged and destroyed from the solar eclipse of 2017. PetaPixel provides pictures in a report that shows some of the damage. One photo, for example, "shows a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens that had its aperture blades partially melted by the sun during the eclipse," while another shows a Canon 7D Mark II shutter being burned so bad that "the heat went past it and damaged the sensor behind it as well." LensRentals, one of the leading camera rental companies, writes about the destruction in a blog post on their website: The most common problem we've encountered with damage done by the eclipse was sensors being destroyed by the heat. We warned everyone in a blog post to buy a solar filter for your lens, and also sent out mass emails and fliers explaining what you need to adequately protect the equipment. But not everyone follows the rules, and as a result, we have quite a few destroyed sensors. To my personal surprise, this damage was far more visually apparent than I even expected, and the photos below really make it visible.

The images above are likely created because people were shooting in Live View mode, allowing them to compose the image using the back of their screen, instead of risking damage to their eyes by looking through the viewfinder. However, those who didn't use live view (and hopefully guess and checked instead of staring through the viewfinder), were more likely to face damage to their camera's mirror. While this damage was far rarer, we did get one particular camera with a damaged mirror box caused by the sun.

Comments

Yes it is

[Solandri]

Secondly, this is NOT an example of what happens to your eyes looking at the sun, unless you are looking at the sun through several layered magnifying glasses - which is essentially what a telephoto lens is.

It is exactly an example of what happens to your eyes when looking at the sun.

It isn't the size of the lens which matters, it's the f-ratio. The ratio of the lens aperture (diameter) to the focal length. While a larger diameter collects more light, a longer focal length focuses that light into a larger image. So regardless of lens size, if they have the same f-ratio then the intensity of the light at the focal plane is the same when pointed at the same light source.

The human eye has a f-ratio of about f/2.1 (night-adapted) to f/8.3 (daylight). While the 600mm telephoto gathers a lot more light than your eye, it also focuses the light into a much larger image of the sun, so the energy per mm^2 of sensor isn't as high as you'd think given the large lens diameter. F-ratio goes as the diameter of the lens, while amount of light gathered goes as the area of the lens, or diameter^2. So comparing the 600mm f/4.0 telephoto to your eye at f/8.0, the telephoto's light has only 4x as much energy per mm^2 of sensor as per mm^2 of retina. Consequently, it would only take 4x as long to cause similar damage to your eye than it would take with the 600mm telephoto. Probably a lot less time since biology tends to be much more sensitive to temperature than metal and silicon circuitry.

Re:No it is not

[John Napkintosh]

You're mad that what he said is accurate? You have an interest in people being deprived of knowledge? You're threatened by the spread of useful information?

I think I'd rather you go stare into the sun.

Did you try it?

[SuperKendall]

The problem during an eclipse is that the amount of sunlight hitting your retina is still up in the range where it can cause damage, but not in the range where you'll notice immediately.

Oh really - did you try this during an actual eclipse?

Because even up to 99% obscured, there was still too much light to look at the sun directly without wanting to look away again right away. The light took on an eerie quality to be sure, but was not substantially dimmed until the actual full eclipse. Images I took about a second after the total eclipse ended showed a dark sky but still a massively bright sun, and the end of the total eclipse was about the same apparent speed as someone putting a dimmer up to full brightness over the course of a second or two.

There is no danger from the sun "appearing safe to look at" because at no time did it appear safe to look at until it actually was.

No it is not

[Anonymous Coward]

A recent article in Chemical and Engineering News discussed just this. The damage comes from over-production of all-trans retinal. Normally, 11-cis retinal is converted to all-trans, which is then converted to retinol, and back, eventually, to 11-cis retinal. It is along this pathway that an signal is generated that says "I got light". Too much light results in an over-abundance of all-trans retinal, which in the presence of yet more light absorbs additional light to eventually produce an excited triplet state. This then interacts with oxygen creating reactive oxygen species that then interact with lipids in the cell, damaging them, and eventually leading to cell damage.

Also, calculations indicate that the local temperature increase caused by directly viewing the sun is only about two degrees, not enough to cause physiological damage.