could laser light burn CCD ?

[bojan_hohnjec1]

Hi, I am using EOS 1d & I am asking this because 4 years ago on

music festival several cameras were destroyed by laser light used in

DJ arena altougth most of them were cheap amateur cameras there

were also a few professional tv cameras.Now I was told that the only

way for laser to burn the chip is to "hit it" in the angle of 90

degrees is this true ?

P.S.(sorry for my English)

[charlie_vigue]

How does the laser compare to the brilliance of the sun? People shoot into the sun all the time, no worries.

[bobatkins]

I wouldn't have thought that any laser which wasn't powerful enough to blind you could damage a CCD (or CMOS) chip in a camera under normal conditions.

 

I would hope that lasers powerful enough to blind people wouldn't be directed at people (with or without cameras) at music festivals - or anywhere else.

 

A powerful laser could certainly destroy a camera sensor. In fact it could punch a hole though it and the camera body.

 

BTW I worked with lasers powerful enough to drill holes through cameras for many years, so I do have some background knowledge!

 

I suppose it might be possible for an eye safe laser to damage a sensor if it were static and the light was focused by the lens onto a single spot for a while. One thing about laser light is that it is coherent can be focused down to a diffraction limited spot, so you can get very high intensities over very small areas.

 

I see no reason for the "90 degree" reasoning. As long as the beam was focused onto the sensor, you could have damage, but you'd have to be looking right down the beam, not seeing scattered light, i.e. the actual beam would have to hit the lens.

[grepmat]

Yes. I've melted tiny craters in CMOS sensors myself with lasers (don't ask!). Unfortunately, club-style lasers are often way too powerful to be safe. Even many laser pointers are too powerful to be safe, despite their ratings. By the way, there is a critical angle beyond which light will reflect from a silicon surface rather than penetrate it. That may be what the person was talking about. Cheers.

[charlie_vigue]

"I've melted tiny craters in CMOS sensors myself with lasers "

 

How did you do it? How big was the resulting crater?

[greg_erker]

Someone on candlepowerforums.com said he damaged his digital

camera with a green laser pointer. I think it was one that

was tweaked to run above its rated power.

 

Greg

[mr.wind-upbird]

That's why they say never to look directly at a laser.

[charlie_vigue]

Someone elsewhere said purple aliens came down and ate the CCD out of his digital camera, and that the alien expressed a dislike for CMOS. I'll believe both when I see some evidence.

[bojan_hohnjec1]

Anyone dares to photograph a laser directly with his digital camera & post us pictures? I don't. Do you ?

[grepmat]

Mr. Vigure: I used the NOVA laser at Area 51. It's a football field sized bank of lasers that produce 1337 GigaWatts of power for an instant. All 666 laser banks were focused through a microscope objective at the CMOS sensor. Although the sensor suffered melted craters of roughly 10 micrometers in size, the microscope objective was completely vaporized by the heat of the light. Interestingly, the CMOS sensor still worked more or less normally after all that. O.k., maybe I'm not being entirely honest about this - the true light output of the laser is classified. But in the end, there's likely nothing I could say that would convince someone determined not to believe, and I said not to ask anyway, didn't I. Cheers.

[charlie_vigue]

Well, I tried it with much less exotic equipment. A common Pentax Optio S and a laser pointer. No problems, as expected. Of course lasers exist that would be capable of harming all sorts of materials, including CCDs. However, I strongly suspect those sorts of lasers will never be legally aimed at non-combatants.

 

The human retina isn't famous for being the most robust structure in the universe, rather, most reports I hear classify it as pretty delicate. With that in mind, I also strongly suspect the damage to a CCD in a case like this would be the least of worries.

 

I also suspect you're full of crap, although that last one may be wrong. But you made a claim, can you back it up? I've shown that my normal (legal) laser didn't damage a CCD, and I'll be happy to post the video to the free upload site of your choice.

 

If anyone has a place I can upload the AVI I created showing the 'killer laser' shooting into the undefended CCD I'll be happy to do so, but I only have image hosting.

[grepmat]

My, my, Charlie, you do have a strange chip on your shoulder. Guess what - I don't have to back anything up just because of one ill-mannered skeptic. Have a nice day.

[charlie_vigue]

Well, where I live asking for minimal proof for a doubtful claim isn't ill-mannered any more than calling someone closed minded is. I did the requested experiment, where's yours?

[giel_du_toit]

HI,in one of the local photo magazines was a article of a guy who,s brand new nikon digital camera,s ccd was damage,upon invstigation it was found that three more very expensive digital video cameras who was used at the same show was also damaged.the magazine promised to folow up on this,but yes,i do believe there,s more to laser shows then the eye meets.maybe units imported from eastern countries which do not comply with our standards.its actually scray to think that people will use that at shows,even at the cost of doing serious damage to even humans.

[charlie_vigue]

It would be interesting to know what it takes to burn a CCD, and how that compares with standards in place for human safety. I would be surprised if something safe for the retina was able to damage a CCD, but as I said, I'm open to proof otherwise.

 

As for illegal use of high powered lasers, well that would be illegal, dangerous and foolish, but that hasn't stopped people in the past!

[donald_choi]

There are some CCD cameras that are made to have a laser hit the sensor.

 

Check this out:

 

http://sales.hamamatsu.com/en/products/system-division/laser--fibre-optic-measurement/beam-analysis/c5948.php?&group=1

[vasilis]

All CCD cameras can be used easily to measure laser beams. Scientific CCD cameras (like hamamatsu) do not have anything to make them more resistant to laser light (in most cases). Except one small thing, in fact they are maybe a bit more resistant because they do not have the dyes in order to choose colour like the bayer sensors (they work like scanners or the SIGMA dslr for better sensitivity). Dyes usually are substances that can be usually damaged by lasers. Eitherway in a lab, people attenuate the beam or they sample the beam in order to make a measurement. From personal eperience I know that you have really to try to burn the CCD when using laser of 1-2mW. For example, green laser pointers are up to 5mW and I would consider them safe if it was not MY camera :-) .

 

If you will get damage or not depends on the laser mostly and not on the camera. I have heard, also, that the power of the lasers they use in clubs is not exactly what someone would call eyesafe and there to be honest I would not stick my camera without asking first. Eye safe lasers (a lot of pointers are not!) should not do any damage to the camera.

[dan_vidal]

Based on how the laser is programmed, I doubt any damage would be incurred. I regularly shoot in evironments where fairly powerful (for show lasers) units are being employed, and my 10D has not fared any worse for the wear.

 

<center><img src="http://www.cooljunkie.com/images/contributors/danvidal/galleries/2004_august/2004_august_01/crobar/011.jpg">

</center>

<center>10D, ISO 400, f4.0, bulb</center>

 

Unless you are directly on-axis of the beam, for a good long time, and I'm talking like 30 seconds or more, I don't see any damage occurring.

[evan_johnson1]

yes, i shoot high speed photography and use a laser pointer as a trigger for a strobe, could the reflected light

from a passing object damage the CMOS sensor in my Nikon D300

[frankmoody]

<p>Yes it is possible to destroy your sensor with a laser.<br>

It happend to me this weekend, while experimenting with live view. I'll link some before and after images.<br>

The details are as follows: I had a 50mm 1.8 Nikkor Prime lens fitted to my Canon XSi/450D. Due to lack of a focusing ring, because of the lens adaptor, I was useing live view.<br>

100/sec, f1.8 an ISO 400 at the time of the sensor burning.<br>

The laser was a green heavy duty bastard, acting as the light show for the band Pendulum. They played a horrid mix of drumb and base while blinding people with this stupid laser at Ramfest in South Africa. I had my camera held above my head when the beam struck my camera <em>perpendicular. </em> it was a very quick burst of light, a short while later I noticed that my LCD screen had lines accross each image after that happened.<br>

I down loaded the images on my PC and reset the camera, changed cards, removed batteries. simple fact, the image looked fine through the view finder, but each image taken will still have those lines of dead pixels caused by that green laser.</p>

<p>here are links to the images so you might see for yourself:<a href="http://www.frankmoody.com//01.jpg"> </a> <a href="http://www.frankmoody.com/01.jpg">01.jpg </a> - a second before the burn.<br>

<a href="http://www.frankmoody.com/02.jpg">02.jpg</a> - the image a second after the burn.<br>

<a href="http://www.frankmoody.com/02_fullsizecrop.jpg">02 actual size crop</a> .<br>

<a href="http://www.frankmoody.com/03_fullsize.jpg">03.jpg i</a> s actual size a short while later so you can see the damge on the images</p>

<p>Now my question is, who can I claim for damages... if this is what it does to my camera or only 100th of a second, what is that beam doing to my eyes?<em><em><br /> </em> </em><br>

<em><br /> </em> </p><div></div>

[adam_morgan1]

<p>grepmat: "I used the NOVA laser at Area 51"<br>

I am beginning to doubt that you have ever been close to the NOVA laser. First off, it is not in area 51, but at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in Livermore California.<br>

Secondly, the objective lense would not be destroyed by the laser as it is optically transmissive material. The CMOS sensor would have been vaporized though and not survived the laser impact.<br>

Thirdly, the NOVA laser does not fire that way. It is part of the National Ignition Facility where the beam is split and routed around a spherical chamber through which the laser is aimed at a precise point in the center where a Hydrogen pellet is placed. The laser is used for fusion experiments.<br>

Fourth, the laser does not put light out in "true light," but in ultraviolet.<br>

The reason the things you say aren't convincing anyone is that they are not true.</p>