Timeline for Can it be dangerous to look at the sun through the viewfinder?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 13, 2021 at 17:33 | comment | added | Michael C | It's more likely to damage actual pixels because the increased total heat load can not be dissipated as rapidly as the lower total heat load, thus for the same amount of time the temperature of each pixel will rise to a much higher level. It's similar to the difference between spilling a few drops of boiling water on the back of your hand and submerging your hand in boiling water. The heat from the few drops can be dissipated quickly enough to prevent skin damage. The heat from total immersion can not be dissipated fast enough to prevent major damage. | |
| Apr 8, 2020 at 15:40 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | Total energy is 72x (roughly), spread over 72x the area. Same loading per pixel or other areal measure. Total heat load is 72x, this may be more likely to damage the sensor as a chip, but load per pixel is the same and therefore no more likely to damage actual pixels in the sensor. | |
| Apr 8, 2020 at 14:15 | comment | added | Michael C | In the case of the 24mm f/4 lens, the high energy area getting the same field density is only a very small percentage of the total sensor area. In the case of the 300mm f/4 lens, the same field density is covering a much greater portion of the sensor, thus the total amount of energy is much higher. | |
| Apr 8, 2020 at 14:12 | comment | added | Michael C | @ZeissIkon That's not how it works with a light source that is only 1/2° in diameter. There is nowhere near the same amount of the sun's energy being projected onto a sensor (or being projected out the viewfinder) with a 24mm f/4 lens as there is with a 300mm f/4 lens. The amount of energy collected increases as the square of the entrance pupil diameter ratios, but the amount of area it covers only increases at a linear rate. | |
| Apr 7, 2020 at 13:16 | comment | added | scottbb♦ | @ZeissIkon high magnification actually makes things safer: the sun's image is larger, so the energy is less concentrated. This is dangerously misleading. There is no magnification level that is safe enough to view the surface of the sun without damaging your eyes in very short time, using passive optics and a viewfinder. Mount a 3000mm lens to a DSLR, and the sun will fill the entire frame. And I guarantee the sun will damage your eye. It's just that intense. | |
| Apr 7, 2020 at 12:57 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | Important point here: high magnification actually makes things safer: the sun's image is larger, so the energy is less concentrated. The aperture ratio (f stop) is the danger factor -- the faster the lens, the hotter the solar image spot. If you had 300 mm f/4 it would product the same spot temperature as a 50 mm f/4 (but the spot would be 6x as big with 36x the total power). | |
| Apr 7, 2020 at 9:15 | comment | added | Ruslan | @MichaelC you won't necessarily feel no pain. When I was being under the procedure of retinal laser photocoagulation (532 nm, not IR though), I did feel pain on many of the laser pulses. That was on the periphery though, maybe macula isn't that pain-sensitive. | |
| Apr 7, 2020 at 7:07 | comment | added | Michael C | UV is not the dangerous end of the electromagnetic spectrum with regard to sunlight through a camera lens. Infrared, on the other end of the visible spectrum from UV, is what can cook your retina in a matter of seconds with high magnification lenses. You'll feel no pain and you won't even realize the damage until several hours later when the scar tissues begins to form. The damage is irreversible and no amount of UV filtering will protect you from it. | |
| Apr 7, 2020 at 5:35 | comment | added | Emil | A tiny nitpick: The UV-part of the sun spectrum has the highest energies per photon but it is not "more powerful". Both the visible and (near) infrared spectrum carry more power in total. So at least for heat-related damages a UV filter will only help by a small amount. | |
| Apr 6, 2020 at 22:53 | history | answered | user91383 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |