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

[TheRaven64]

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.

People do it all the time, and then look away immediately because it causes their eyes to water and then hurt. 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. It's a similar issue to sunburn on cloudy days: because less IR is hitting your skin, you don't realise that you're still absorbing a lot of UV and so end up burning even when you don't feel that warm. You've evolved a set of danger reflexes for things that damaged a large proportion of your potential ancestors, not for the rarer events.

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.

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: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.