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

No it is not

[SuperKendall]

First of all, this whole mania about not looking at the sun ever is absurd. People do it all the time between eclipses with no lasting damage.

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.

Now what you don't want to do is stare at it for longer than a second or so, but brief glances are OK. However you'll not be able to see a partial eclipse that way, the rest of the sun is too bright - so you really need glasses just to see anything.

Similarly for camera gear, if you pre-focus, quickly move the camera to the sun, shoot, then turn it away - there's no lasting camera damage. However what you really REALLY do not want to do is to be looking through an optical viewfinder when that happens, there even a second can hurt your eyes. But live view with an LCD viewfinder is fine.

Re:No it is not

[Bender0x7D1]

There are 2 major risks that I'm aware of...

1) You use a counterfeit filter that filters out the visible spectrum, but not enough of the UV or IR. This removes the blink/look away reflex, but still causes damage.

2) You look through anything magnified without proper solar shielding during totality and don't stop looking before it ends. So, that 1 second of magnified sun causes permanent damage before you can look away.

There have also been people who consciously "override" their reflex because they want to see it; or who look, look away, and then look back right away. However, my understanding is that this is very rare, and there have only been a few people who have ever been reported having this issue.

From NPR: "I've seen a couple of patients over the years where, you know, you've got very distinct crescent-shaped scars from looking at a solar eclipse," says Chou.

Re:Yes it is

[hankwang]

It's not just irradiance (W/m2) that counts for retinal damage for two reasons. 1. Removal of heat is much more efficient from a small spot than from a big spot (3D versus 2D heat transfer). 2. Involuntary drift of the eye spreads out the dose if the spot size is small. (Try fixing your gaze at a spot for 10 seconds - you can't).

Some of the camera damage was in the aperure blades. Those were not in the image plane of the lens (similar to your irises). Those get quite a bit more dose if there is a big-diameter lens in front of them.

Disclosure: years ago, I reasoned that you wouldn't get blind from looking into the sun for 0.3 seconds, with binoculars, based on your irradiance argument. And tested it. Well, I didn't get permanent eye damage, but the after-image was 8x bigger in diameter than that of the sun with the naked eye and lasted for a day - rather disturbing. That was before I learned about the mechanisms of laser-induced damage.