At very wide angles the danger is much less and taking photos with the sun in the field of view doesn't normally harm the camera or lens. When the sun is very low on the horizon the energy is also reduced as there is much more of Earth's atmosphere to absorb much of that energy between an observer on the ground than when the sun is high in the sky.

More importantly, with wider angles of view it probably doesn't do any harm to the photographer's eyesight. Keep in mind, though, that to the best of my knowledge **NO** manufacturer of cameras or lenses has ever said anything to the effect of, "It's okay to look at the sun through our camera's viewfinder." *If in doubt, use Live View. You can replace a camera. You can't replace retinas cooked by the sun's infrared light!*

With narrower angles of view provided by longer focal length lenses it's an entirely different story. You can damage your camera in mere seconds. You can also permanently damage your eyes. Your retinas have no pain receptors. Even looking at the unmagnified sun for a relatively short time period with your naked eyes can damage them. Human pupils have a minimum opening of only about 2-4mm when fully constricted. Now take a high powered telephoto lens, such as a 200mm f/2.8 - the entrance pupil is over 70mm wide! The amount of sunlight, including infrared light, striking a circle 70mm wide is 320X as much as the amount striking a 4mm circle, and over 1,200X as that striking a 2 mm wide circle! Multiply that energy times 4 for a 400mm f/2.8 or a 560mm f/4 or an 800mm f/5.6. All of that energy is being refracted and focused into a much smaller area and coming out the back of your viewfinder in about a 3mm wide light field which your cornea focuses down to a very small area. **You can literally cook your retina in little more than an instant with the infrared light from the sun through such a lens.** 

For your camera, the worst case scenario would be doing something like using a telephoto lens in Live View. Even though you might take the photo at f/22 to limit the amount of light reaching the sensor, the aperture of your lens is likely wide open until you click the shutter. The energy of the sun is strong enough when focused by your lens to heat the internals of your camera very quickly. If things get hot enough, they will be damaged. Even if the heat doesn't cause damage, the voltages generated in the sensor's electronics may be enough to damage the circuitry.

Thank goodness this camera wasn't in Live View and pointed directly at the sun with the shutter curtains open for the 1 minute it took the [sun to do this][1] through a 600mm f/4 lens. It happened during a flare test conducted by Bryan at [The-Digital-Picture][2] with the sun just out of the frame but obviously just inside the lens' image circle. If the light that fell on the edge of the light box had been focused on the sensor or shutter curtains (in viewfinder mode) the camera would likely have been rendered unusable.

![enter image description here][3]

![enter image description here][4]

**The warnings almost all camera's manuals have against pointing the lens directly at the sun are there for a reason, and it isn't just so you can't blame the manufacturer when something goes wrong.** Especially when the sun is almost directly overhead in a clear sky, the chance of damage is very real. The lower the sun is in the sky, the more clouds there are between the sun and your shooting location, or the more anything else (such as a proper solar filter) is absorbing some of the sun's energy the less likely it is that short periods of pointing your camera at the sun will result in damage. This is why it is fairly safe to take sunrise/sunset photos: due to the sun's angle it is passing through many more miles of the earth's atmosphere than when it is high in the sky.

**Be sure to protect your eyesight and do not look directly at the sun through the viewfinder at all when it is at or near full brightness high in the sky!**


  [1]: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Help/Flare.aspx
  [2]: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/wwb2v.jpg
  [4]: https://i.sstatic.net/YhHFA.jpg