How to fix an image sensor damaged by long sun exposures?

Question

I took a number of shots of the sun during mid-afternoon and now all my images have pink spot where the sun was. Is there anyway to fix this, or is it permanently damaged?

The camera was pointed at the sun for a few hours. I was using it as a webcam and left it unattended for a while, plus the camera is about 10 years old. Later I was taking shot at 1/400 and moving the camera after, and that still caused some problems.

Answer 1

Hrm...it's weird that your sensor would be damaged with a mid-afternoon shots of the sun.

1. Were you directly pointing to the sun?
2. Were these long exposures of the sun?
3. Were you using LiveView (on an SLR)?
4. How big are the pink spots?
5. When did you take the shots, and how long have you let the body rest before trying again?

Perhaps try letting the body rest for a hour or two, pop in a different memory card, and try again. If it truly is sun damage to your sensor, it is permanent, and cheapest option will likely be to buy a used body to replace your camera. You can send it in for repair, but the costs might outweigh the value of the body (again look at used bodies).