Remember when you were a kid and used a magnifying glass on a leaf to burn it?
That was focusing that wide area of sun to a smaller area, thus concentrating the light. Your lens does the same thing only it passes through several maginifying glasses. So you effectivly, rather than a ant or leaf you are focusing the sun on your $6,000+ CCDS. It probaly won't get hot enough to do damage, but it's still a bit silly. I would reccomend using a Glass ND filter of you must get the shot.

my 2 cents.

Adam Craig put my dilemma clearly:

"Remember when you were a kid and used a magnifying glass on a leaf to burn it? That was focusing that wide area of sun to a smaller area, thus concentrating the light. Your lens does the same thing only it passes through several maginifying glasses. So you effectivly, rather than a ant or leaf you are focusing the sun on your $6,000+ CCDS."

This leads me to wonder about what John Mitchel describes:

"CCD's seem to be more prone to gamma length radiation (ie that experienced at high altitude in an aircraft) - no doubt prolonged overexposure to high UV could damage them, but ND'd down correctly and with a single UV filter should be fine."

I certainly will take these precautions in the future, but I'm afraid that I already shot the sun (at least, at max telephoto and with a Haze 1 "lens protector" filter that Tiffen claims absorbs almost 3/4 of UV light) without thinking about it, and of course shutter speed is irrelevant, and I did it at 8,200 feet, which probably counts as "high altitude."

So, my concern is about what I may have already done. I know what to do next time (and thanks to all for their suggestions!)!

What Jiri Bakala says is reassuring,

"I have never heard of damage to a CCD camera caused by shooting the sun."

I hope that his never having heard is because it doesn't happen, but intuitively I am nervous. Testing and time will tell. But, if anyone has ever heard of such damage, I would like to hear about it.

Thanks,

Robert Schaller

I've got an idea. Detach the lens from the camera and hold it up pointing at the sun so that it's focusing the light on a thermometer bulb. Now we can see exactly how much energy is getting transmitted to the CCD.

gamma radiation damage shows up as bad pixels. to do this, you need to put the camera on a plane. the fix is the dead pixel mask routine to remove them.

AFA shooting the sun, I put several hours on my 327A a few years back shooting elciplses, with welders ND filter and no extra filter. no damage. YMMV, but I would not expect a problem. Again, its making the image of the sun SMALL that is of potential harm - meaning a wide angle shot, not a full the frame long lens shot. I would not worry about it. we put wide angle lenses onto cameras everyday with the sun in the shot - is there ever a problem ? ( tube cameras excluded :) ).. nope.

Steve Oakley

just don't look threw the vf, could damage your eyes from the uv rays.

I'm thinking this is the kind of thing visual effects were invented for. And rental shops.

Or cheap cameras.

I am sorry Jonathan but what you are saying makes no sense for electronic cameras - what you are viewing is a small LCD or tube screen and it's no different than watching TV. There are NO UV rays going through the electronic VF or LCD display. Only optical systems may be a cause for concern and I would check with an experienced photographer or film DP. I suspect there is lot less to worry about that we might think...