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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.
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"
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
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
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.
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
"Those 4th of July fireworks must be breathtaking on a TV screen."
If you have seen one firework, you have seen them all
That $11.5K lens, though. OUCH.
They can repair the lens for far less than that.
I decided to read the blog post and discovered the guy wasn't really complaining about this. He states this is something they were expecting would happen - "Things happen, and that’s why we have a repair department".
Of course at the end he makes it clear the customers who damaged the equipment are going to be paying for the repairs, which is entirely reasonable.
#DeleteChrome
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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And your eyes are not invaluable!
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.
I guess you never travel at all, since you can just see photos of other cities/countries online.
Yeah, I agree - but the same would probably be true if the rental place bought a bunch of solar filters and then rented them out. After this one event, there wouldn't be much demand for them. Maybe they could've "rented" them out for the (wholesale) cost of buying them.
Having said that - I might see if I can pick one up on the cheap, post-eclipse, and add it to my filter set. I saw some cool "eclipse" photos of the ISS transiting the sun... solar transits might be a fun sort of shot to work on.
#DeleteChrome
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.