S45, photo against the sun: crazy CCD??

[pgmo]

Hi all,
please take a look at the photos below:

http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/pgmoschetti/AutunnoNRW/slides/110_1064.html

http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/pgmoschetti/AutunnoNRW/slides/110_1065.html

Look at the topmost green strip of pixels: is it a noise? Anyway it is something I would never like to see in a photo!!! Is it an issue of digital cameras in general? or is it an issue of my camera? Or one should never take the sun in a foto directly, if he is using a digital camera, should he?
Any idea/suggestion is welcome ... I am quite upset :(
Thank you

[Matzzzy]

Is this something that remains in other pictures?
It is not a good idea to take pictures directly at the sun, since you can damage the CCD, which might be what happened in your case.
If you want to take pictures of the sun, always use a filter

[pgmo]

Fortunately it does not remain in the next photos (you can see the entire album on the internet: other photos after that are OK!) (see: http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/pgmoschetti/AutunnoNRW/index.html ).
It is rather disappointing that after 500Euro spent for the camera, I cannot take the same photos I could take with a traditional camera, isnt'it?

[atkinson1]

Yes, you should never ever point a CCD device into the sun. As you may know, CCD's are made up of (thousands or) millions of tiny light sensitive sensors. Direct un-filtered sunlight can easily be too sensitive and damage a CCD (I mean pointing directly at the sun). Modern cameras have a stripe function built in to warn the user of this (some video cameras do).

Film cameras are different. The worst you could do is over expose that one frame of the film strip.

It's not really a shame that digital's can't photograph the sun. Who needs to? And if you want to, you can buy special filters for it.

I'm glad your camera is ok.

[Ikinaa]

Hi,

with my G3, I got a similar effect last time.
I took a portrait-photo, but the sun wasn't on the picture, though it was only some degrees away to the right. Anyway, the photo was too light, the person nearly not recognizable, and the left half (yes... 50 %) of the picture were darker and nothing was recognizable of the landscape. There were shapes in this part of the picture, that seemed to be a ghost picture of the person on the portrait. (If I was supersticious, I'f say, I shot a picture of the ghostworld :D).
I guess I had the sun at such an angle, that the reflections inside the lens produced this 'ghost'-picture

[KurtKuhn]

I took some sunset photos (http://www.kurtkuhn.com/hawaii/HalelakaSunset/) while on vacation. I think that I got away with it [read: lucky to have no CCD damage] for a couple of reasons. One is I was in aperture priority where is was set f8.0 (the smallest opening for largest depth of field). Two is that it was a sunset and not a full, noon day sun. I did get some green spots (don't know the photographic term for them) that I've yet to post process out of the picture. BTW, other than stitching the panoramas together, none of the photos have been post processed.

[Ikinaa]

KurtKuhn wrote:
I took some sunset photos (http://www.kurtkuhn.com/hawaii/HalelakaSunset/) while on vacation. I think that I got away with it [read: lucky to have no CCD damage] for a couple of reasons. One is I was in aperture priority where is was set f8.0 (the smallest opening for largest depth of field). Two is that it was a sunset and not a full, noon day sun. I did get some green spots (don't know the photographic term for them) that I've yet to post process out of the picture. BTW, other than stitching the panoramas together, none of the photos have been post processed.


Hi,
Before pressing the shutter release, light also falls on your CCD. If you compose your picture for 30 secs, during 30 secs, the sun will burn on your CCD.
But I guess today the CCDs aren't very easily destroyed with the sun. I've taken a lot of photos with sunrise or sunset (Ixus 300 + G3), and never have had any problems after it with picture quality

[atkinson1]

Yeah basically whenever your camera is on, the CCD is letting in light, so even if you are holding your camera whilst talking to a friend, and it's pointing at the sun, it could be damaged.

Sunsets are not as bad because it is not really the full power of the sun.

[stduc]

I'm not aware that the Sun can damage a CCD. There are no warnings to this effect in the manual. I'm sure it's not a good idea and certainly don't use the viewfinder in these conditions. The Sun certainly used to screw a vidcon tube good and proper in the early days of home video cameras, but those days are gone.
I have shot with the sun somewhere in view on many conditions with many cameras, both digital and film and not had any problems later. (Many strange effects however). Having said that, I would certainly recomend limiting sun shots to sunrise and sunset.

[piper]

Several months ago when this was discussed in another thread I sent an e-mail to Canon posing the question. I included a link to the thread here. Here's what I got back:
_____________________________________
Dear Joe,

Thank you for contacting Canon product support.

I apologize, but we are unable to access or view non-Canon websites.

We do not recommend pointing the camera directly at the sun. Prolonged
exposure to extreme light sources could cause damage to the camera's
image sensor.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Jenny
Product Support Representative

Customer Satisfaction... The most important product we support!
_______________________________________

Nothing really new - but it is quite bothersome that Canon tech support staff can't even read forums where technical issues and problems are discussed!

[atkinson1]

they're unable to access non canon web sites. They need to get a better internet browser.

That email obviously didnt help at all - and ironically had "Customer Satisfaction... The most important product we support!"

[Matzzzy]

I have no doubt that they are able to watch other sites, but can not use anything esle as a reference, since any troubleshooting in here isn't "official".

/ Matz

[stduc]

I'm sure Canon are correct - but what do they mean by "prolonged"?

[Guillermo Freige]

There is a problem with all 4MP Canon cameras with digic processor at least. All of them (G3, S45, S400) have troubles in the "direct to sun" shoots. I've tried to reproduce the problem in my S50 without success, and other S50 owners had same results (or lack of).
Probably is a problem of the Sony 4MP sensor and not the electronics. I'll very intresting to know if other brand cameras using the same CCD (Nikon, Sony, etc) have the same problem. Probably the new 4MP A80 also have the same problem (same chip, same electronics)