Can you damage the 7D's Sensor photographing a Mirror.

As I have read that filming the Sun or especially a Laser can burn out the Sensor on a DSLR.

Can the inboard flash damage the sensor if you photographed a mirror at close range?

Only asked as I was playing around with flash settings and was using an ornate Mirror's frame to focus on, and realised it was only 3.5 to 4 feet away and effectively the flash was bouncing back diectly at the camera.

No, for several reasons, not the least of which is that the flash uses TTL, so the camera is going to see the reflection as very bright during the prefire flash and then set the flash power very low for the actual shot.

Takes a lot to damage the sensors with light. Lasers and the sun being 2 exceptions...and if you're looking at the sun through the viewfinder, you'll probably damage your eye before hurting the sensor.

I've seen a video of a guy with a non-attached 580(presumably set to full power manual) pointed directly at his camera while in video mode(live view)...The flash pops and the screen goes white.

It was a Sigma flash and a camera with a CCD sensor...But FWIW here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=KAniVvYA-gE

never heard of a sensor being damaged by doing that.

Keyan wrote in post #14717610
No, for several reasons, not the least of which is that the flash uses TTL, so the camera is going to see the reflection as very bright during the prefire flash and then set the flash power very low for the actual shot.

Sadly as I was experimenting it was in Manual Mode.

I only asked because the next few shots were very very blue coloured.
But I think in these shots the AWB was set on Tungsten, in very dim lit room.
Going to check out today

Thanks for all the posts and reassurance anyway.

Er how do you know if your sensor is damaged anyway? or does it just not work? Or will it work but just not that well?

rrblint wrote in post #14717778
It was a Sigma flash and a camera with a CCD sensor...But FWIW here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=KAniVvYA-gE

Er does my 7D have a CCD sensor as well ? it says in the manual its a CMOS sensor.

Submariner wrote in post #14718634
Er does my 7D have a CCD sensor as well ? it says in the manual its a CMOS sensor.

No, your 7D's sensor is CMOS. And as Keyan said if you were in M mode using the onboard flash, it's power would be recuced from full.

I don't think you have anything to worry about!

I would not think so, I would think the sun hitting the sensor for a longer period of time would do more damage...

The sun - or a laser - aren't just quite bright. They can transfer quite significant amounts of power.

The flash output is measured in Ws - Watt times seconds. The flash is also quite strong, but the light pulse is very short. So you normally don't have enough energy to heat up anything. And heat is the main reason for damaging sensors.

Not sure about the video with the CCD sensor - if it was the image sensor or maybe the exposure control that got overloaded. One thing that can happen with electronics is that you get a latchup phenomenon, where you get a high charge somewhere in (potentially parasitic) capacitor in a chip, and it can take seconds, minutes or even many hours, before it gets discharged.

Thanks for the responses guys- my concern was it would just be my bad luck to wipe out a new camera.

Looks like I got lucky as I think from the following it was not in manual mode but program? [But not too sure?]
Can anyone tell if I'm right from the data in this file?
Would the camera have protected itself?
The camera was 1 meter away from the mirror on the wall.

Data from DPP below:
Owner's Name
Shooting Mode Program AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/60
Av( Aperture Value ) 4.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO Speed 400
Auto ISO Speed ON
Lens EF40mm f/2.8 STM
Focal Length 40.0mm
Image Size 5184x3456
Image Quality Normal
Flash On
Flash Type Built-In Flash
E-TTL II flash metering Evaluative flash metering
Flash Exposure Compensation 0
Red-eye Reduction On
Shutter curtain sync 1st-curtain sync
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Tungsten
AF Mode One-Shot AF
AF area select mode Spot AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 3
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 0isable
Auto Lighting Optimizer 3isable
Peripheral illumination correction Disable
Dust Delete Data No
File Size 2708KB
Drive Mode Single shooting
Live View Shooting OFF
Date/Time(UTC)
Latitude
Longitude

It is 'intensity' of light, not the 'source' of the light, which is the potentially damaging factor.

• If you photograph a room scene, photographing a mirrored image of the scene is non-destructive.
  
• If you photograph the sun, photographing a mirrored reflection of the sun is destructive.
  

^
And even the human eye has its own photochemical version of electrical latch-up! That is why you continue to have residual blotches in your vision after looking at any very bright source of light!

OK picture of how I did it [firing into a mirror - forgot flash was up!].

The actual colour of curtains - a sort of beige silk
The colour that I got after the incident of firing into the mirror or is this all due to the Tungsten setting. As without it the normal colour is back.