# Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD's?



## naromtap (Mar 10, 2005)

*Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

Saw a comment on another thread about bright lights damaging CCD's on a digital camera...Is this possible? If so how bright does the light need to be? i had a look on the net but came up with nothing.


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## KevinL (Mar 10, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

IIRC there was one case where Inretech tried to take a picture of a multi-Luxeon rig and their digital cam was never quite the same again after that. Maybe a search about Inretech and camera might turn up more useful info?


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## naromtap (Mar 10, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

ok I'll have a look.


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## Tritium (Mar 11, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

Take a look at this report of radiation damage of CCD's
http://www.pulnix.com/Imaging/TechNotes/TH-1087.pdf
I turned it up by googling CCD Damage.


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## yuandrew (Mar 14, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

Probably yes. The instructions for my camcorder warned me against pointing it at the sun


On the other hand, the first time I've heard of this happening was on the LED museum's review of the Double Barrel 18 LED flashlight in the user-modifed section


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## LEDMANIA (Mar 14, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

[ QUOTE ]
*yuandrew said:*
Probably yes. The instructions for my camcorder warned me against pointing it at the sun


On the other hand, the first time I've heard of this happening was on the LED museum's review of the Double Barrel 18 LED flashlight in the user-modifed section








[/ QUOTE ]

I encountered the same problem when I shine my key chain blue led on my RICOH RDC 5000 digital camera and since then every time I take a picture outdoor the image is full of blueish snow but when I take a picture indoor with incan bulb as the source of light, the result is as good as the before /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif


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## naromtap (Mar 15, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

Ok thats interesting, thanks for your comments. Strangely I could find nothing on the net about it.


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## MaxaBaker (Mar 21, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

Geez I hope not! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif


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## VidPro (Mar 23, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

on my video cameras, it would not be how bright the light is, but how poorly the camera ADJUSTED the iris for it.
so if i video tape lights and they are little small retina blasters in a dark room. and the iris is adjusted for the dark room, then its going to hurt it a lot more.

but if the iris adjusted to (or i adjust it) the bright light, instead of the dark room, then there would be no more light hitting the ccd, than normal filming.

when it comes to LEDs, for the camera its the same as it is for your eyes. go outside in 30X sunlight, and look into a led, and you might not go blind so fast.
but go into a dark room , and pop yourself in the face with a led, and POW there goes ya retina.

Note: it can take as long as 10 minutes for the human eye to adjust fully to lighting conditions.
it can also take a while for the camera Iris to adjust to changing lighting conditions, and a SINGLE point source of light would not be adjusted for at all, depending on how the camera metered for it.

so if your carefull, you could prevent damage , especially if you have filters, and controllable IRIS capacity.


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## pradeep1 (Jul 26, 2005)

*Re: Can a bright light damage digi cam CCD\'s?*

In another incarnation I am a photography nut, and just like you collect flashlights, I do the same with cameras. Most sensors for digital cameras can accept large amounts of light without burning them out. The photoreceptor just saturates and the it is rendered as pure white. This is true for most relatively recent and moderatly (>$150) priced digital cameras. On some cameras, mainly Canon, the LCD display will show a red or blue line perpendicular to the bright point source (sun, for example), but this is not recorded on to the media. In the olden days of film cameras, they used cloth shutters, and yes, those shutters could be damaged by the lens focussing sunlight on the cloth. But I have yet to hear of a digital camera being destroyed by a bright light....and there is probably nothing brighter than the sun head on.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=2342899&size=lg

Hope this helps....

Pradeep


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