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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.
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.
This is an incredibly good example of what happens to your EYES if you look up at the eclipse without protection.
That $11.5K lens, though. OUCH.
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Dumb Americans used their eyes and/or cameras to view the eclipse.
Smart Americans used certified eclipse glasses and/or rental cameras to view the eclipse.
At least according to the president who has rose colored glasses that protected his vision.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
From TFA:
"Thankfully, there were relatively few items that were returned to LensRentals with this type of damage"
Several of my coworkers who lived in the path of eclipse had their cameras mounted on telescopes without solar filters. The best picture they took was Jupiter shining brightly to one side of the eclipse.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it even possible to get a decent (zoomed)picture without using a solar filter? Even if the shutter/sensor didn't get damaged?
Only at totality. Even at 99.99% it would show up as a bright blob without a filter. I took a ton of shots that day with solar filter on my DSLR and a few without it on my phone just to see how they would turn out (phone cameras were not at risk due to the relatively wide lenses they use vs a DSLR with a 500mm zoom). The phone pics, even right before totality, just look like I took a picture of the sun on a random day.
If you planned ahead a good solar filter could be had for about $50. I just attached $10 worth of thousand oaks solar film to a cheap Cokin P-series compatible ND filter. Worked perfectly and was easy to remove at totality.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Interesting.
I am an avid photographer myself and I wouldn't dream of these kind of stupidities.
Yet I can very much understand technically challenged people not understanding the consequences of their decisions.
On the other hand, they did understand there was a need for specialist equipment that even on rent won't be cheap, and now they are told their insurance doesn't cover it.
At the end of the blog with scary pictures Zach Sutton writes he was surprise how few equipment was actually damaged yet he also writes this is only a small sample.
So now I get really interested to know what percentage came back damaged.
Then we can use that number to extrapolate how many personal equipment was burnt.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Right. Why did people take pictures of it at all? If you want pictures, go to a space/astronomy/NASA site after the eclipse and download to your heart's content.
It is the same mentality as those who film a sporting event with their smartphone. Why? It will be broadcast, in better definition and commentary, and they can watch the re-broadcast when they get home.
Monkey see monkey do.
I come here for the love
No. No it did not. All of that rental equipment showed up in the users' hands in boxes or cases. The USERS are the people who destroyed the equipment. It's like saying the brick is what destroyed the chef's knife that someone was using to try to cut it in half. Why does any of that matter? Because usage like that just drip-drip-drip reinforces the notion that people aren't responsible for their own actions, and that particularly cancerous concept spreads into all sorts of dangerous places.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Are you kidding? I'm sure their contract allows them to keep deposits or charge for damages. Profits might actually increase for them this quarter. They get to renew their stock of cameras at the renters' expense.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Several of my coworkers who lived in the path of eclipse had their cameras mounted on telescopes without solar filters. The best picture they took was Jupiter shining brightly to one side of the eclipse.
That must have been some radical fisheye they had mounted, because Jupiter is roughly opposite the sun right now. The bright star near the sun would have been Venus.
Is it even possible to get a decent (zoomed)picture without using a solar filter? Even if the shutter/sensor didn't get damaged?
Yes, during and very near totality. You can't get a usable shot during totality with a solar filter, as I'm sure many found out.
But you need to protect the lens until that time, either by using a solar filter, or by not pointing the camera towards the sun until totality starts. And you still want a filter, just not one that strong.
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.
Wow. You must be fun at parties.
And also: I pity your spouse. And your children. But I doubt you have either of those, thankfully.
my mother told me not to stare at the sun
Yes, Jupiter is on the opposite side of the sun from us. That is why you would see it if you looked towards the sun. Today if you looked at the sun and then looked 15 degrees east you would see Jupiter (or wait till the sun sets and look 15 degrees above the horizon).
That must have been some radical fisheye they had mounted, because Jupiter is roughly opposite the sun right now. The bright star near the sun would have been Venus.
Four planets were visible during the eclipse (in order of brightness): Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury.
Although an interesting thought experiment about the light collected by an eye vs a lens, you are not factoring in a massive difference - the eye is filled with fluid, while the chamber of a camera is not.
That keeps the temperature regulated, in a way a camera simply does not do...
In fact if you read about HOW eyes are actually damaged by looking at the sun without magnifying elements for too long, heat is not a factor at all - so how can it possibly compare to the damage done by a camera lens which is entirely heat related? It is in fact the result of an internal chemical reaction, totally different...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not only brighter but how the obstruction makes more light reach the viewer?
Did they take that picture with one of the damaged cameras?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I used a Minolta X-9 film camera with a Tokina 50mm f8 RMC Schmidt-Cassegrain lens mounting a solar filter on the front. In between shots I put a box over the lens to shade it to prevent the camera and lens from overheating. I thought it was a pretty obvious thing to do. Apparently it wasn't as obvious others. https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes. Get a lens that stops down to f/22. Attach two 2X telextenders to the lens. You now have an effective aperture of f/88. Set the ISO speed to 50 (or lower if possible), the shutter speed to 1/8000 or faster. Any visible part of the sun's disk should now be within the dynamic range of the sensor, although not by much.
Other techniques could be used to cut down the amount of light entering the lens, such as covering the front of the lens with a sheet of aluminum foil with a pinhole in it. The success of that technique depends of the design of the lens; severe vignetting may result.
f/88 means a lot of diffraction, so the image won't be sharp. You're better off with the solar filter.
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LensRentals is a very capable company. They do some of their own repairs, and some of the damage will be handled with repair, not replacement.
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I was considering photographing the eclipse because I thought the process could be fun and interesting to learn about and do. I didn't expect my photos to be any better than a professional's--in fact, I expected them to be worse. I wound up not doing it because the company I ordered the solar filter from ran out before they fulfilled my order.
1. Yes, LensRentals rents out cameras and lenses. For special one-time needs, it's better to spend $400 to rent a super-duper lens for a week than to buy it for $4000. Also, some people will rent equipment prior to buying it, to cover the possibility that the equipment isn't satisfactory for their purposes.
2. The experience of an eclipse differs from sunset or cloudy overcast. While in the partial phase, it gets dark while shadows are still distinct. It's a rare event, and the combination of rarity and the peculiar sensations do make it interesting.
Some people overreact, and I understand your cynicism. Nonetheless, an eclipse is unusual and a bit fun; it's a memorable event that most people are pleased to have experienced.
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From 8/21/2017 solar eclipse? ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
These are the same fuckwits who take pictures of their FUCKING FOOD and their dogs wearing tiny sweaters or moose antlers or little red noses, which I'm sure those animals HATE and sharing them with their so-called "friends," who are also morons, evidently because they don't immediately unfriend the jackasses who do this shit, and move on with their lives.
So I prevented harm to myself and my precious cameras by NOT pointing them at or near a giant ball of fire in the sky.
So, erm, what do you take photographs of? Or do you prevent harm to your precious cameras by keeping them safely in a closed, locked box at the bottom of wardrobe in the bricked off spare room in the basement of your secret bunker?
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.
You didn't cancel your order, did you? You can still use the solar filter during all the rest of the time that's not an eclipse and photograph sunspots or other transits. Plus, you'll have it for the next eclipse.
Looks like there will be a Venus transit in December of this year.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
They cancelled it when they couldn't fulfill it. I'm still thinking about ordering one, but I thought I'd wait a while for restocking to happen.
I guess you never travel at all, since you can just see photos of other cities/countries online.
I always found that tele-extenders were little more than soft-focus filters.
200mm Nikkor @ f22 with NDx8 + linear polariser on slide film. I should dig it out of the collection one of these days.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
My favourite is the thousands of camera flashes you see going off at stadium sports events, because your flash works over 50-100 feet and doesn't just give you an underexposed photo with a really nice shot of the back of someone's head in the foreground.
Actually, using a flash at sporting events, concerts, and other brightly illuminated events isn't a bad strategy for point-and-shoot cameras. The fact that the flash doesn't illuminate the subject is irrelevant; the flash sync speed of the shutter is just about what you want for proper exposure anyway.
I think the analogy would be to not to take pictures while on vacation. Not not going on the vacation.
Gonna call bullshit on that one. I can find a dozen articles that will confirm you should turn your flash off (and anything that is making aperture/exposure decisions based on the flash is going to be underexposed). Feel free to post one article to the contrary.
You had me pretty excited there for a minute. Your Venus transit date is off by 100 years. The next one is Dec. 2117.
I think it's a Mercury transit, but something is coming up.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Shot tons of photos with OnePlus, nothing bad happened.
Sure! He said it's ok to look at the sun so what harm could it to to a camera?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can see sunrise AND sunset? So your basement has windows to the east AND west?
Man, that's what I call living!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Some people never listen. All you can do is educate. After that it up to them to listen. Idiots everywhere.
As a professional photographer, I agree. Flash is useless at sporting events and performances. Hell, it's mostly useless everywhere else. Anything you could possibly need it for can be corrected in post if you shoot in a RAW format.
I can't tell you how many people I've taken aside at such events and shown them (because they don't know) how to turn off the flash on the $2000 camera that they only play with for an hour every 6 months.
The reaction is always "WOW, that DOES look a lot better!"
There were some old simple cameras with no metering where that was true. My old Instamatic from the 1960s was an example; it used a different (longer) shutter speed if the flash was active. That seems counterintuitive now, but it was necessary for flash bulbs because they did not emit all their light nearly instantaneously like a Xenon flash tube does.
(Cameras with focal plane shutters, like SLRs have (digital or not), still need a relatively slow shutter speed for flash. The reason is that at higher speeds (above 1/90 to 1/250 second, depending on your camera model) there is no moment when the entire picture is exposed at once, and therefore no optimal moment to fire the Xenon flash. A focal plane shutter uses a slit that moves across the film plane. The speed of movement of the slit is always the same; what changes if you switch shutter speed is the amount of time between the travel of the leading and trailing curtains.)
Every digital camera I have ever seen, aside from ultra-cheap disposable ones, incorporates some form of electronic metering. Flash won't help you there. The likely result of using flash is that something in the foreground will get illuminated by it and cause the metering system to decide the picture has had enough exposure, and the distant scene that you're actually interested in is underexposed. Fancier cameras that figure out which part of the picture you are interested in will do better, at least if they guess the point of interest correctly. REALLY fancy ones look at your eyes to see what you are looking at in the viewfinder.
In addition to TomH123's comment, another difference is that a lot of the photos people take on vacation are of themselves. I don't think people were renting cameras to take selfies of themselves with the eclipse.
Although a Google search shows some hits. And quite a few people saying not to do it. Interesting.
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." -Indiana Jones
Hankwang -- holyshit! You looked at the sun through binoculars!? As the primary test of your conjecture with yourself as the subject? Man - you may be one badass honkey mofo indeed. When I first turned on my Transcranial Current Device the lights flickered. Then I realized that wasn't the lights. Self experimentation is best handled by those of us with the mind and the balls to handle it. Thanks for the data.
more importantly -- What is the backstory to this experiment?
This really might fall in the "You gotta share this one man!" category.
Marcus
justhinkit -- Your point is very logical, efficient and practical. My own behavior is based on your exact points as I care about utility (eat to live) so I can pursue things greater (than talking about gastronomy or my phone-video of a noteworthy event.)
I posit however that the Monkey SeeDo is valuable to humans as a ritual. The value of the Monkey SeeDo is that hominids participating is that they possess a memetic locus around which to establish communication, which is ultimately about distributing resources (including status).
People who think in the terms shared by you and I (in this certain case) don't find value in such rituals.
"Nice weather we're having, Marcus." said Johnny
"I don't talk about the weather unless I'm on a motorcycle or flying an aircraft."
Wow. Now i know why some people think Marcus is a strange asshole,thought Johnny.
Yeah...sure I DO know that humans utilize 'Weather Observation' as a communications handshake protocol. But hey -- Johnny is likely right that I am an asshole.