Sun damage?

I see a lot of shots of sunrises and sunsets in the sharing and critiquing forums. I like a lot of them. I'm wondering, though, whether it can be a good thing to point a ccd camera directly at the sun? I obviously never worried about this with my film cameras, but am leery of doing severe damage to my 10D.

Has anyone noticed burned out areas on their sensor? Better yet, does anyone have any hard data (i.e., specs from Canon) on the danger of this?

It's never a good idea to point your camera directly at the bright sun, but during sunsets & sunrises the sun is considerably dimmer. It depends on the atmosphere. My rule of thumb is: if you can look at the sun with your naked eye (and you can tell whether it's safe to do this or not), then it's OK to take a picture with your camera.

You are only pointing your CMOS at the sun for very brief amounts of time. The mirror and shutter are in the way until you press the shutter button. I'd be much more concerned about my eyesight than I would be in damaging the CMOS.

the CMOS sensors are more susceptible to UV damage than our eyes. In point and shoot cameras, the shutter remains open all the time, so pointing it toward the sun, setting up your shot, then pressing the shutter, is much more harmful than setting up your shot on a DSLR where the shutter is closed for all but a very short amount of time (say 1/250 sec)

I might invest in a UV filter just to be safe.


BUT I had very very considerable sensor damage on a Nikon point and shoot I had.

This is not an attack against you...just a question. How does a P&S camera take a picture if the shutter remains open? Where do you get control over shutter speed and aperature?

Rick

Digital point and shoots do, obviously have a physical aperature. They do not, however, have an actual physical shutter (hence the ability to see a "live" display on the lcd at all times). The "shutter" speed you set is actually just a programmed snapshot of time that the sensor and processor records. Most have a fake shutter sound that often can be turned off if desired.

Hope I've helped

Thanks...I've learned something today.

Me too. I suppose a P&S will be better that we don't have to look at the sun directly. (I don't have a P&S btw.)

The shutter actually does activate when you press the button. When I look closely at my point and shoot, it actually looks like the shutter actually closes and the picture is taken. That is quite weird and I don't understand it without some research. In long-exposure mode, it looks like the camera shrinks aperture quite a bit for a few seconds then the shutter closes for a few seconds more.