Can exposing a bare camera sensor to flashlight from a smartphone damage the sensor?

I am pretty new to the DSLR/mirror less

or even the interchangeable lens systems

world.So please excuse my queries. I

have a Sony a6000 which is my first

interchangeable lens camera.Yesterday

night I thought of looking whether the

camera sensor has any dust.And this was

my first time checking the sensor after I

bought the camera.Now the issue here is

to check any dust since my room is

poorly lit I used my smartphone's flash

to look into the bare naked camera sensor

(without lens and lens cap). It was just

for a couple of seconds or three when I

realized that it might be bad to use a

bright light direct on the sensor. Since

then I am going paranoid whether I did

any damage to my sensor.I know that

very bright objects such as sun can

damage the sensor but what about the

flash light from a smartphone to the bare

sensor.Can it damage the sensor in any

way?Also is there any test to find out

whether I did any possible damage to the

sensor or not?

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<p>"I am going paranoid" <em><strong>Sean B.</strong></em></p>

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<p>Yup. <br /> Stop worrying; sensors where designed for light to strike them.<br /> And stop "<em>looking whether the camera sensor has any </em><em>dust</em>", your images will reveal if there's debris on your camera's "sensor" - Just go out and take pictures...</p>

<p>From my understanding "light" and "light, while under power" make a difference.<br>

To spot dust on a sensor: take pictures at f 16 (or smaller) and check if different ones reveal dust i.e. black spots) in the same place. - Dust is camera shake rsistant so you can hand"hold" insanely long exposure times for this purpose too.<br>

But still, without questioning your hawkeyes' x-ray vision: You have a much better chance to spot 4pixel sized dust in 1:1 / 100% view on your computer screen than trying to do the same by opening your camera.<br>

Also: IF you spotted any, would you have <em>proper </em>tools to battle it?</p>

<h1> </h1>

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<p>what about the flash light from a smartphone to the bare sensor.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No.</p>

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<p>I know that very bright objects such as sun can damage the sensor</p>

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<p>Not really, especially if there is no lens on the camera. Camera sensors are designed to be exposed to light. Now if you put a lens on the camera, without a special solar filter or very dense neutral density filter, focus on the sun and do a very long-timed exposure with a sky tracking device, there is a possibility you could damage the sensor due to <em>heat</em> build up, think of burning a leaf with a magnifying glass, not <em>light</em> build up. Since doing that would not yield a picture it's not commonly done. <br /> <br /> Normal photography exposures with the sun in the frame are too short for that to happen so there is no fear of damage in normal landscape photography that includes the sun.</p>

<p>The best way to detect dust on the sensor is to stop the lens down completely (e.g., f22) and point it at a blank surface or open sky. It doesn't have to be in focus, and the shutter speed doesn't matter. If there is dust, you will see a spot in the image when you examine it at 100% (pixel = pixel). The narrow beam from a stopped-down lens will cast a sharp shadow of any dirt.</p>

<p>Be aware that this is an extremely sensitive test. The smallest particle you can see, under side light without magnification, is about 20 microns. A particle this size would cover 16 pixels of a full-sized, 24 MP sensor.</p>

Yes I did buy a rocketblower and sensor brush for cleaning the dust if any are found and yes I do know it was foolish of me to try and check the sensor with a flashlight from the phone instead of looking through a loupe or taking shots at apertures larger than f/16 orf/22 and checking them at100%.Also I have taken pictures of the sun but that was with the lens at f/32 or f/36 and that was using the lens cap and a lot of chimping between shots.So I know there was very less light striking the camera that time .But with a phone's flashlight although not bright as a sun but when directed at a bare open sensor isn't the intensity more bright especially considering that there is no lens to protect the sensor from that excess light.?And that is what I am precisely worried about whether the light intensity of a phone's flash is more than enough to cause sensor damage or is it within the permissible limits of a sensor? And right now I am more worried about sensor damage than the dust since the former is the one which will seriously impact my camera and my pictures and the mere thought of damage has made me pretty worried.

<p>Jochen's first sentence means that if the sensor is getting no electric power -- that is, if the camera is switched off -- you needn't worry. As others have said, taking a photo at a small aperture is a much more reliable test.</p>

<p>Under power or not makes no difference. Flooding active photosites with photons that exceeds their capacity to process them at a given gain level (ISO) does not harm the sensor. It occurs routinely in overexposure situations. Once the over abundance of photons are reduced-through reduced illumination, shutter speed or aperture change, the pixel wells return to their normal operational status. They are designed this way or otherwise every time you grossly overexposed a scene by mistake you would cause damage.</p>

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<p>what I am precisely worried about whether the light intensity of a phone's flash is more than enough to cause sensor damage or is it within the permissible limits of a sensor?</p>

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<p>Not even close. Perhaps you didn't read my first response. A cell phone led light is nothing in comparison to the sun, or a high powered studio strobe. The fact the sensor was exposed without a lens is actually safer since the light source is diffused across the entire surface. It takes a focused beam, as I described above, or perhaps a powerful laser to cause physical damage. Those situations are possible but rarely occur in normal use.<br /> There are plenty of things to worry about in life. Exposing your sensor to too much light isn't one of them.</p>

<p>Lasers can damage sensors, although it may only happen during video filming. It's not clear whether this has any implications for the visible light spectrum, but there is at least one reference to a sensor being damaged by a flash aimed directly at it, which is an indicator that it could be an issue. There's information <a href="http://www.laserist.org/camera-sensor-damage-thesis.htm">here</a>.</p>

<p>Jeff's link points to a discussion of damage from visible light and near infrared lasers, *not* a flash. I would also not worry about non-visible "light" (photons). It's ultra-violet photons that have more energy per photon. After a certain frequency they are very dangerous to the human retina. People who have gone to the trouble of getting a "light" in that frequency range generally know what they are doing. If not and you have something like that sending photons in random directions, you have a much bigger problem than possible damage to a camera sensor.</p>

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<p>*not* a flash</p>

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<p> <br>

If you do some navigation on the site you will get to <a href="http://www.ilda.com/camera-sensor-damage.htm">this</a>, which has a link to the flash-related sensor damage.</p>

Yes jeff I have seen those videos of sensor getting damaged by a laser on YouTube so I always knew that lasers are really bad for our camera sensors but i guess the damage happens because the laser light is already a pinpointed one and it is very easily focussed towards the sensor than a sun.

But with a flashlight all i was worried about was the intensity of the brightness of the light since I thought all those bright lumens can be damaging to the sensor.Also the link above points out that those sensors that were damaged by the lasers were all attached to a lens.

So does that mean any bright source of light which is passed directly towards the sensor is far more forgiving than the one passed through a lens?Is that right?Also what if the light source is also very very close to the sensor?