Sensor damage?

Kilo

I've been trying to learn more on my own and understand the three basics of photography... Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed.

So a few days ago, I was on the backyard taking test shots of the sun setting behind trees. I had it set on M and the first shot was all black, of course. Then I had dropped down the shutter's speed. Every shot afterwards got brighter to where I could see the sunset and trees. I ended dropping it down to 1/30 sec, and no flash.

Then yesterday, I went upon a hill to shoot another sunset, (no trees this in the way this time). I kept on dropping the shutter speed each time until I tried 8 seconds. It came out all white, and as soon as I saw the exposure was all white, I immediately wondered if I had hurt the sensor?

I'm no pro—just a novice, so I don't know what made me think of such a thing, since I don't know much about cameras; and no one ever told me not to ever take long exposures of light, (although the sunset wasn't bright).

The sun didn't hurt my eyes, not even when I looked through the view-finder at 135mm. I did see a glow in my eyes after looking, but it did not hurt, but I still wonder if it hurt the sensor.

It still seems to be working, but do you think it won't take as good of pictures now, now that I've taken an 8 second exposure of the sunset? Should I have it looked at and tested at a shop?

I was just trying to learn on my own how to use full-manual and also not have to use the flash all the time.

Thanks!

Cygnus Studios

A quick search through google says that long exposures of the sun can damage the sensor.
Doesn't seem to have an exact time on exposure, so take it for what its worth.

I think that it is probably wise to be safe. No direct sun shots.

Now I have thousands of sunrise / sunset pics and have no damage what so ever.

NikonsandVstroms

It just means you over exposed

the sensor just reads level of light, and you pegged it, should be no problem

edit:

If you do something like a 30 second exposure you could hurt it, 8 seconds you should be safe, just remember you have a big magnify glass there and remember what that does to ants

Kilo

First test shot after yesterday evening's fear of sensor damage. Had nothing else to take a picture of `cos it's raining.
This apple was near a 40w table lamp. The only thing that seems to be the most focused is the apple stem,
but the camera did not focus on that, the view-finder showed that it was focused on the far right of the apple.

Here's what the EXIS is...

Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure Program: Manual
Flash: Off
Focal Length: 47mm
ISO: 800
Shutter Speed: 1/15 sec.
White Balance: Auto

Sad, sad shot here. I don't know if the sensor is hurt just a little bit, or if it's me being a novice not getting the settings
correct, or both...`cos I see distortion, no sharpness whatsoever, (except the apple stem, but the stem isn't all that good).

If sensors were damaged, do they still take pictures, (good or bad ones), or do they just not take pictures at all?
Would just by looking at the picture say anything about sensor damage if a damaged sensor can even still take pictures?

pyry

I've seen pictures from a sensor with a sunburn, it was a point-and-shoot running an endless timelapse sequence. After some time there were trails were the sun had passed that were simply slightly paler than the rest of the image - it was nothing a dust correction wouldn't fix.

And that is something you can test, see if there are dark/light patches that don't look like dust. You need a picture of an evenly lit wall for example.

I don't think a long exposure of a few seconds would hurt it, but it's not something I'd want to try. Use the metering as a starting point for the exposure.

ChatKat

Check your camera settings
It looks to me that for 47mm shot your shutter speed was @ 15 - too slow - you're under exposed here too.

Try checking all your camera settings because it's not the sensor.

Tim Kamppinen

Relax. Your sensor is fine. In that shot you posted, there are lots of problems, but none of them are due to sensor damage. The focus seems to be on the stem/edge of the apple. That is actually fairly sharp all the way around. The closer you get to your subject the thinner your depth of field gets. To get more in focus at this distance you would have to stop down to a smaller aperture.

It's also underexposed, mostly. Look at the front of the apple. It's all in shadow. That's why there's no detail. You need to add some light to the front of it, and everywhere else in general as the background looks dark too. Note: stopping down the aperture to increase DOF will also make the image darker than it currently is. That means you need to add more light to compensate for that, as well as the initial underexposure. The easiest way to do this is to use a longer shutter speed. You could also put a lamp by it, use a flash, whatever. The distortion you speak of, if you're talking about the converging lines of the counter trim, is due to the way you positioned your lens. It's not a bad thing either. A straight on shot where those lines appear straight might end up being boring.

Nothing wrong with the sensor that I can see. You just need to play around with your camera until you figure out how to make the images that you desire.

Kilo

Lots to learn—lots to learn.

LoriKTM

Kilo wrote:

Lots to learn—lots to learn.

Hi Kilo! As one novice to another, I'm going through the same learning process. My husband recently handed me his old college textbook, and lots of things are making sense now. The veritable lightbulb (or flash bulb?!) has gone off in my head.

Pick up a copy of "Photography", by Barbara and John Upton. Ok, it's a bit outdated and heavily biased on film and b/w photos, (our copy is circa 1989), but it makes the fundamentals easily understood. Plus, the book is readily and cheaply available in the used market. I'm sure there's other fine books out there as well, but this one is really working for me.

Kilo

LoriKTM wrote:

Hi Kilo! As one novice to another, I'm going through the same learning process. My husband recently handed me his old college textbook, and lots of things are making sense now. The veritable lightbulb (or flash bulb?!) has gone off in my head.

Pick up a copy of "Photography", by Barbara and John Upton. Ok, it's a bit outdated and heavily biased on film and b/w photos, (our copy is circa 1989), but it makes the fundamentals easily understood. Plus, the book is readily and cheaply available in the used market. I'm sure there's other fine books out there as well, but this one is really working for me.

Thank you!

I will look for that book. I have been looking at others, like ones for DSLRs, but I can't make up my mind which to get. The bookstore people around here don't really know which to tell me is the best book on teaching how to use SLRs, since most or all aren't into true photography that much, with little interest in SLRs, and many have never heard of an SLR. Just like me at one time, I will admit.

When I was growing up, I was very interested in electronics, (and I still am), and if someone had given me a camera of any kind way back then, I might have gotten interested in photography as well. But since I never got a hold of a camera growing up, it never phased me to ever become a photographer. Then in the spring of 2005, I, out of the blue, for some reason, started getting interested in cameras and photography, and the interest has only gotten stronger, but preferably with SLRs.

ChatKat

Book
There are many good books. The KISS Guide to Digital Photography is excellent to start with.

cpallen

Learning photography
Someone here on Dgrin recommended "Mastering Composition with your Digital SLR" by Chris Rutter. It was a little difficult to find but it is full of examples - not a dry text-book type of book. I have enjoyed reading it and it's helped me to vlearly understand the mechanics and the art.

I will reccomend it too.

Courtney in Seattle

Kilo

cpallen wrote:

Someone here on Dgrin recommended "Mastering Composition with your Digital SLR" by Chris Rutter. It was a little difficult to find but it is full of examples - not a dry text-book type of book. I have enjoyed reading it and it's helped me to vlearly understand the mechanics and the art.

I will reccomend it too.

Courtney in Seattle

Thank you, also, Courtney! I will get several books now. J

rhjf

One book which I highly recommend is Understanding Exposure by Brian Peterson. In my opinion it's a book with the right combination of basic theory and practical examples.

There are some books (like the two-volume Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby, for example) which are quite ‘recipe’-oriented, i.e. ‘For this type of photo, press this button.’ Now, those books are fine as far as they go but Peterson’s is the book to which I return at least once a year to brush up on what he has to say about both fundamentals and also more involved principles of photography.

Robinivich

rhjf wrote:

One book which I highly recommend is Understanding Exposure by Brian Peterson. In my opinion it's a book with the right combination of basic theory and practical examples.

Seconded!

And for anyone still wondering about "sensor burn," just think common sense. A digital sensor is essentially a wonderfully complex piece of metal and plastic. If it gets heated up enough, bad things are going to happen. However, how hot it gets has not a lot to do with whether or not the shot is overexposed.

I can point a camera at a dim lightbulb, crank the ISO, and in no time at all get a flat white image. At the same time, I don't think it heated up much at all, and I'm certain it's not been damaged.

With a possible exception being high ISOs and multi-hour exposures, I don't believe you can damage a sensor by "using" it, ie, a sensor can't fry itself because you told it to do something, so all you have to worry about is how hot it's getting.

To damage one's sensor, one would have to massively overexpose a shot of the sun (basically give your sensor a long time under the magnifying glass), probably with a medium-fast aperture setting, to see a real problem. Lots of repetitive exposure could do it as well. If you wouldn't subject any other piece of electronics to that kind of heat, don't expose your camera to it.

Kilo

Robinivich wrote:

Seconded!

And for anyone still wondering about "sensor burn," just think common sense. A digital sensor is essentially a wonderfully complex piece of metal and plastic. If it gets heated up enough, bad things are going to happen. However, how hot it gets has not a lot to do with whether or not the shot is overexposed.

I can point a camera at a dim lightbulb, crank the ISO, and in no time at all get a flat white image. At the same time, I don't think it heated up much at all, and I'm certain it's not been damaged.

With a possible exception being high ISOs and multi-hour exposures, I don't believe you can damage a sensor by "using" it, ie, a sensor can't fry itself because you told it to do something, so all you have to worry about is how hot it's getting.

To damage one's sensor, one would have to massively overexpose a shot of the sun (basically give your sensor a long time under the magnifying glass), probably with a medium-fast aperture setting, to see a real problem. Lots of repetitive exposure could do it as well. If you wouldn't subject any other piece of electronics to that kind of heat, don't expose your camera to it.

As you all have said, none of you believe I've hurt the sensor, and I don't think I did as much as I did the evening when I took that 8 second exposure of the sunset.

I mean there was no heat coming from the sunset and it didn't hurt my eyes to look at it, not even looking at it through the view-finder at 135mm. But at the same time that I believe the sensor is as good as the day I bought the camera, I still wonder if it should still be tested, (especially now that you mentioned the ISO. I didn't set the ISO, I left it as the factory set it, which was 100. I don't know if that was a bad number or not for an 8 second exposure).

So I did what Pyry said, to take a picture of an evenly lit wall, (and I'm guessing a white wall as wall), to test the sensor, but unfortunately the camera cannot focus on the wall, so it won't shoot.

I'll have it tested like that at the shop sometime this month so they can test it on their wall or whatever they use for a test like this; and meanwhile, even if the sensor is as good as it was the day I bought it, I'm still not gonna shoot seconds of exposures of any kind'a light, not even of a tiny dim star.

ziggy53

Shooting into the sun really can damage the sensor but there is no hard and fast rule how long it will take.

A camera lens focused on infinity will focus the sun down to a pretty small diameter, depending on some other variables.

If you don't believe that a lens can damage the sensor just take a lens (at your own risk) and focus the sun on the back of your hand. I don't suggest you leave it too long as you really can, and ultimately will, burn your hand. (Again, do this at your own risk. I take no responsibility for foolish behavior and I told you what it would do.)

A digital sensor is likewise vulnerable to the heat damage caused by an extended exposure to the sun, and it can happen in just a few seconds.

If there is damage it will show as either stuck/hot pixels or dead pixels. There can be degrees of damage but often it is catastrophic to the affected photosites.

It is also possible to destroy the AA filter in front of the sensor and/or the IR cutout filter, which may be the same entity. The IR cutout filter will absorb most of the actual heat energy from the sun and can shatter in an extreme situation.

Please folks use caution photographing the sun and I really don't suggest using your lens to burn other things either. I have photgraphed many a sunset but when you overexpose terribly beyond the extreme bad things can happen.

Photoskipper

Not sure whether the photos is cropped.

the minimum distance for the 28-135 mm is 0.5 m (1.6 ft). it seems the object was too close to the lens.

I do a lot of sunrise/sunset and tracking birds against the clear blue sky and have no sunburn to the sensor yet.