Safe to shoot the sun?
 

Hi,
I damaged a XM2 a couple of years ago getting a close up of the sun.
It must have burned out the chips and the only way to get an image on the camera afterwards was to go down to 6fps. Fortunately the camera was still under guarantee and was repaired by canon.
I am now shooting a documentary on an A1 and will be doing a series of road shots with the setting sun in the background. Is it safe to shoot into the sun at this time or should I get some additional ND filters?
thanks in advance,
Max

>Is it safe to shoot into the sun

NO!

That's interesting. I just returned from a trip to Key West where I filmed several sunsets for up to 10 minutes at a time. I cannot see any damage to the picture after doing that. Is filming sunsets unsafe to do, or are we talking about filming the bright noon-day sun? I just want to make sure I'm not doing something that could potentially hurt my precious hc1.

The difference between sunsets and high noon is dramatic! Much more light at say high noon, like an eclipse. A lot more intense. The was a previous thread to two a while back, that got into more detail about doing it.

This is a good one to start with:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...&highlight=sun


Mike

I'm still not sure from that thread.
I know the A1 has a few internal ND's (that are not documented).
Could i burn out the CMOS chip if I shoot the sun say after 5pm on a clear day?

There was one post I remember very well, it said something like, if you can't look at the sun without a problem, you can't shoot it either! Just remember that the lens is going to focus all of what it sees on that little 1/3" chip, i.e., concentrate it there. Come on, you had to have fried some ants at some time??!?!?!?!?!!? If not, you have to get outside more.

Mike

"If you can't look at it, you can't shoot it"
That was the very line i took away from that thread that seemed like sensible advice.