Hi there,

do you know the (kind of mirror in a mirror) patterns that you get when pointing the video camera to the monitor that's fed from the very same camera? Sort of an optical feedback I guess. I was told that this might cause damage to the camera (the CCDs). Is that true or just a myth?

Greetings to you all,

Oliver.

Myth.

Absolutely sure?

I'll buy you a new camera if it breaks.

I'll take you by your word!

I'm an honest fellow.

Did it myself. Search for "video feedback", because that's what it is. It doesn't break your camera. Instead you can get some interesting fractal-based images to appear on your TV. Interesting stuff.

Now shooting into the sun... that can damage your camera's CCDs.

Obviously the sun isn't a good idea to shoot.

Yeah, I really like the paterns you get, especially when playing around with zoom and exposure and distance between camera and monitor.

What I find interesting is that sometimes you seem to get a stable recursive loop (not sure if that's the right term). However, then, all of sudden everything starts to move and spiral. I somehow assume that a little inaccuracy (gosh, how do you spell all these words, sorry English is not my native language) - due to a constant looped feedback - upsets the whole system, and this tiny change can have far-reaching effects. (I wonder if a fly passing between camera and monitor could trigger the whole thing. Or maybe a little lost electron, hitting the screen randomly, or...)

Are we talking chaos theory here? The flap of a butterfly in Europe can - theoretically - trigger a tornado in the States-scenario?

Sorry, rambling on here.

Greetings to you all!

Oliver.

you can some even better effects runing thru a linear editing board. like negitive. the colors strobe. change the frame rate. now even cooler than that, cut out the camera compleatly. plug one of the out puts in one of the in puts. im sure that s great for the machine... wasnt mine... you have to give it some thing to work with, change chroma or some thing, and you get grainy brown green drifting to the right. now fade a picture in and back out...they melt and drift to the right. if you have a fancy board (but who wants expensive analoge equipment?) time delay mosaic..... i did learn useful stuff in high school too... i just dont use any of it.

sounds great what you are suggesting there, Patrick. Plugging the out to the in on the very same machine. No that's a thought... just wonder if that might not be harmful to the machines.

try it on some one else's machine. baby your own stuff. i did it in a high school video class, but i was still probably was nicer to those machine than the rest of the dumbasses in there.