How NOT to shoot an eclipse (or any solar image)

So, here's an interesting video of why it's important to place solar filter media in front of the lens: <LINK>

Seems like a video made deliberately dramatic for the purposes of going viral.

 

A science teacher would have used a magnifying glass or binoculars with a dummy head rather than needlessly sacrifice a perfectly good camera just to see smoke coming from it.

 

Maybe next time someone will try to outdo it by burning up a medium format digital mounted on an observatory telescope.

Michael Chang made me wonder if there's a photographic counterpart to Pete Townsend smashing his Rickenbocker on stage!

 

Well, not quite, since there was a more practical reason for photographer Ben Hooper to destroy a lens and risk destroying his camera (though the camera survived, just falling off its tripod). He captured this by having the shutter sound activated, since he couldn't accompany the camera at such a close distance to the LAUNCH OF DELTA 4 AT CAPE CANAVERAL-LINK.

Those cameras are at least 10 years old which is pretty ancient for a DSLR. I wouldn't say that they're worthless but since the video was shot in front of a camera shop, an old DSLR like that probably has little value to them. Maybe it was even defective.

 

That was definitely one big piece of glass they had in front of it. I used a filter but the lens I had was a run of the mill 3.5-5.6 100-300mm zoom. I wonder if that would have burned up the camera without a filter.

This reminds me of the youtube video by Mythbusters Adam Savage on how to remove a stuck camera filter. Very entertaining, but don't try it at Home. Search for Adam savage removes a stuck lens filter. Edited August 23, 2017 by Glenn McCreery

Hmm. I hope none of the "smoke" (volatilized camera bits) deposits on the rear surface of the lens! Could be an ironic and expensive lesson for the guys who shot the video.