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Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse
- dingaling 9y agoIt's a shame that Lens Rentals had to suffer such material loss, but that report is absolute gold-plated first-hand evidence for my perennial debates with other photographers who insist that they don't need Solar protection for eclipses. "But I took a landscape shot at midday with the Sun in frame and it didn't melt my sensor". The difference being the length of exposure and the concentrations of energy.
- fencepost 9y agoThey have an in-house repair shop that dealt with most or all of it, and they charge the customer for the cost of the repair. From the comments the fact that they don't gouge on repairs is one reason some folks use them.
- matthewrudy 9y agoHow do you fix a burnt cmos sensor? I feel like canon would charge you near enough the full replacement price.
- chrissnell 9y agoI wish the blog post had talked more about that. I'm curious about their repair process. What capabilities do they have in house? Can they replace a broken sensor?
- matthewrudy 9y agoI know about 12 years ago I blew the firewire connection on my video camera (Canon xm2), and to fix it they would have to replace the full board. So I feel like they don't make them repairable.
- Faaak 9y agoYet with a heat gun its an easy fix. It depends on their expertise
- fencepost 9y agoThere are a lot of things that a professional repair shop focused on a particular type of equipment may be able to do that aren't practical for anyone else - including manufacturer repair facilities. Louis Rossman is a bit entertaining on this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ocF_hrr83Oc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ocF_hrr83Oc
- giobox 9y agoThey blog a lot about their repairs process in general. It's primarily mechanical damage to lenses they appear to normally deal in - the focusing rings, aperture mechanisms or realigning optical elements dislodged by drops and so on. An embedded CCD/CMOS sensor is probably a full logic board replacement I'd assume, as opposed to some kind of sensor only replacement, given it's almost always soldered on.
- gambiting 9y agoYou fix it yourself, most likely using a sensor from another broken camera.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y agoThey might send that back to the manufacturer to fix. In the Reddit thread, they talked about replacing the aperture module for some of the lenses; that's just a simple swap, along with cleaning the adjacent elements.
- sdwisely 9y agoI'd imagine it's a fairly common replacement. I've seen event photographers do it quite a few times putting their cameras near lasers.
- cookiecaper 9y agoI'm only a reluctant amateur photographer, but my understanding is that damaged sensors cannot be repaired, and that manufacturers will quote repair costs totalling or exceeding the cost of an entirely new camera.
- userbinator 9y agoA quick search online reveals plenty of sources of replacement sensors, at a fraction of the cost of the complete camera.
- matthewrudy 9y agoThere do seem to be people selling 7d mark ii cmos sensors for ~$300, while a new body would cost ~$1100. Someone posted a video of replacing the sensor on the old 7d (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udonzfGdW0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udonzfGdW0Y) Seems it eventually worked for him, after several attempts to adjust the position to get correct focus, but if you read the comments on the video there are many people who've messed up their camera trying to do this. Might be fun to try though.
- csomar 9y ago> And of the things returned, we were equally impressed with our customer-base, and their guilt and owning up to the damage. I thought the renters would be paying for it?
- tedunangst 9y agoThey still probably lose out on some revenue until a replacement is in stock. Having a working lens is always better for business than getting reimbursed to buy a replacement lens. (That's the nature of the business, though.)
- nateroling 9y agoHe mentions in the article they rented out “thousands” of lenses. I’m guessing the few lenses they have to repair because of this is barely over their normal repair load.
- hug 9y agoLensRentals do all possible repairs internally, so I suspect that the downtime on an expensive lens like that is minimal if possible. Roger mentioned on the photography subreddit that the aperture replacement was a $200 part and 3 to 4 hours -- it only took so long because it was that tech's first time replacing that part. https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/6xg8a7/lens_rentals_shows_some_of_their_rental_camera/dmga5m0/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/6xg8a7/lens_re...
- monochromatic 9y agoStill, lots of people might feign ignorance.
- selectodude 9y agoYou can feign ignorance. It doesn't change the fact that the lens has a burn hole on it now.
- 9y ago
- monochromatic 9y agoPresumably the rental place isn't planning to just eat the loss. They have the renters' credit card numbers...
- patcheudor 9y agoYup, it all came down to how long the camera was pointed at the sun. I took a bunch of photos of the eclipse including this HDR shot with a Leica 280mm lens and Sony A7R with no filter whatsoever & without any damage to my lens or camera. The thing is, it took seconds to take and I made sure the camera was only pointed at the sun for brief moments: https://www.flickr.com/photos/patcheudor/35886777354/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/patcheudor/35886777354/ I'm assuming the damage Lens Rentals saw was from people who were trying to do time-lapse.
- romanhn 9y agoOff topic, but I think here's another image of the same airplane, also taken in Idaho: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/6v62nl/plane_crossing_todays_eclipse/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/6v62nl/plane_cros...
- patcheudor 9y agoThat one would have been taken about 15 miles or so to the southwest of my location.
- Stratoscope 9y agoThat turned out to be a fake. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6v6y1k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6v6y1k/
- dboreham 9y agoI was in North Eastern Idaho and there is a similar looking contrail visible in my wide angle shots at totality so if the point of image capture happened to be just right it would be possible to have it in the frame with the sun.
- rangibaby 9y agoOh man that's hilarious considering this: https://petapixel.com/2016/01/29/nikon-awards-prize-to-badly-shopped-photo-hilarity-ensues/ https://petapixel.com/2016/01/29/nikon-awards-prize-to-badly...
- heartbreak 9y agoJust to clarify, there’s no concentration of energy involved with the eclipse itself. The concentration involved is no different than setting a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass on a regular day. The sun isn’t a garden hose. Putting something in front of it doesn’t make the edges more intense.
- Gracana 9y ago> The concentration involved is no different than setting a leaf on fire with a magnifying glass on a regular day. That's what they're saying. Zooming in on the sun vs the sun happening to be in-frame.
- xsmasher 9y agoAre you saying zooming in on the sun makes damage more likely? Wouldn't zooming in spread the sun's energy across more of the sensor? Same energy, larger area = less intensity.
- grahn 9y agoThe irradiance is determined by the aperture, which is measured relative to the focal length. So with e.g. f/2 you get the same heating of a given area of the sensor regardless of the focal length (i.e. "zoom"). Put differently, longer lenses typically also have bigger absolute apertures, collecting incident light from a larger cross-section. This compensates for the fact that a given solid angle of incident light is spread over a larger area of the sensor.
- resoluteteeth 9y agoDingaling is talking about the light being concentrated on certain areas of the sensor. Because the total/average brightness is low, the exposure ends up being much longer then at normal conditions, causing damage to the areas where the light is concentrated. Under normal conditions, the light will be less concentrated on certain spots, so even though there is much more light in total, the camera will choose an appropriate exposure that will prevent damage to the sensor.
- oliwarner 9y agoWhen you hire a lens, you're contractually and personally on the hook for anything not insured. So yes, somebody owes LR a considerable amount of money for repairing or replacing that £11,000 600mm lens. The admin of dealing with this crap is built into the rental price. A well looked after lens doesn't depreciate fast.
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- wlesieutre 9y agoWorth noting that on the 600mm with melted iris, the user did use a solar filter. Unfortunately for the lens, the 600mm lens's drop-in filter slot is behind the iris. So the camera was fine, the lens not so much. http://shuttermuse.com/canon-drop-in-filter-guide/ http://shuttermuse.com/canon-drop-in-filter-guide/
- ars 9y agoWhy do they even make a drop in filter rated for the sun, if it's going to damage the lens? What use could you make of this filter?
- nullc 9y agoThere is a drop in filter holder that takes 52mm filters designed to screw on to the front of lenses.
- throwanem 9y ago(For those unfamiliar - it works this way because the objective element of this lens is far larger than anyone makes filters for. 52mm is a very common diameter, so placing a drop-in mount further along in the focal path means you can use a wide range of filters with minimal cost and inconvenience, and to identical effect - except, of course, in the rare case where you have enough energy coming down the barrel to damage the iris.)
- triggermuch 9y agohey astronomy was a wicked hard class and i still dont get it, so maybe this will be a very expensive lesson for them. sadly it probably wont be the right one but that is life. you know that there had to be a couple of smug asshats that were brought down a peg, thats pretty funny. I missed the eclipse.
- jmiserez 9y agoNow imagine that kind of damage being done to your eyes. It hurts just thinking about it, yet some people don’t seem to really believe the warnings.
- penagwin 9y agoI'd argue this is slightly worse because the cameras have higher magnification lenses* vs our naked eye. This might be more akin to looking into a telescope with your eyes. Edit: To elaborate - Higher magnification lenses (depending on the camera lens used of course) Edit 1: - /u/corndoge Suggests that people may take this the wrong way. I mean to say in the amount of physical damage it's worse for camera's because of the extra (and typically higher magnification lens). I don't mean that a burnt camera is worse then a burnt eye - I'd rather anybody loose tons of $$$ for a camera then have eye damage.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoOur naked eye has a lens too.
- jmiserez 9y agoBut it’s not a 600mm tele, so the actual area of burn damage is going to be smaller. You’ll still have a blind spot in the center of your field of view, but not the whole eye. Still, I imagine it’s quite a disability either way.
- theoh 9y agoInfo about the different mechanisms of eye damage due to bright light: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144654/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144654/
- njarboe 9y agoThis is well written and accessible article. Thanks for the link. One of the best short lay descriptions of light that I have come across: "Light is a form of electromagnetic energy. Electromagnetic radiation has a dual wave-particle nature. When light is absorbed by a photoreceptor, its particle nature is important."
- grepthisab 9y agoInteresting! My assumption is that this could not happen with a phone camera though, correct? Because then one would think just leaving one's phone face down on the table in sunlight would ruin it.
- penagwin 9y agoThe sun would have to be dead center middle so it's probably unlikely. The lenses on the fancy cameras definitely make it a far worse problem for them vs our phone cameras though. An iphone 6 camera only costs 5$ and is easy to replace(with a screw driver and spudger (maybe an igizmo) most hacker news people likely wouldn't have issues.), so it's not the end of the world (source:I repair phones)
- patcheudor 9y agoMost people don't mount their cell phones to tripods or celestial tracking mounts so there's enough movement it would never be an issue. It would be interesting to mount one to a celestial tracking mount and see what happens. Honestly, I've got some old cell phones laying around here and might just give that a try.
- penagwin 9y agoThat would be really cool to see! /u/tzs posted some links, so it looks like people a somewhat unsure. I'm guessing that if the sun is well tracked in the center for long enough that it would damage the lens. I guess we don't have a ton of hard data for it.
- owenversteeg 9y agoSo I've photographed lasers a bunch and burned a few sensors, I guess I should toss in my experience. As far as I can tell, it really depends on the specific phone that you're using, and also the damage is usually fairly minimal. I've damaged fancy sensors with lasers and they almost always have major problems afterwards, but for years I used a phone with a very severe amount of laser damage to the sensor and the photos were quite good and the damage was barely noticeable (as a series of black lines on the image.) There was no damage to the lens. I also doubt it would be the lens damaged in the case of a smartphone. The lenses are built to take a tremendous amount of abuse and almost certainly would be fine. The sensors are by far the more fragile component.
- nxc18 9y agoI think my favorite part of this article is how the author is so understanding and positive about his users. I think if I had rented out cameras to people, told them not to point it at the eclipse, and then got a bunch of damaged cameras back, I'd be pissed. In fact, I might have choice words for those customers. I think there's a lesson here in targeting inexperienced consumers. Perhaps a good preventative measure would have been handing out protective lenses before the eclipse so that customers would have really had to try to mess it up.
- olegkikin 9y agoWhy would he be angry? The customers are paying for the damage.
- monocasa 9y agoThere's still a potential opportunity cost from temporarily not having those damaged items in stock.
- jessaustin 9y agoIANAPhotographer, but many other rental businesses (cars, boats, bicycles, etc.) make lots of money on overcharging for repair/theft. It wouldn't shock me to learn that camera rentals are the same.
- gist 9y ago> and then got a bunch of damaged cameras back, I'd be pissed It might not be good business to express that in a blog post
- SirZimzim 9y agoYeah, got to remain positive and cheery and use it as a positive "learning experience".
- 9y ago
- lisper 9y agoAt one point during the eclipse I used a pair of binoculars to project an image of the sun onto the ground. Of course, it was a double image, so to fix that I covered one of the eyepieces with my hand. It took about three seconds for the pain to register. Hard to say which hurt more: the small, first-degree burn on my palm or the rest of me from kicking myself afterwards.
- klipt 9y agoShould have covered the intake side.
- lisper 9y agoNow you tell me! ;-)
- linker3000 9y agoWell, you're good for the next one.
- quickthrower2 9y agoEven so the whole idea of naked binoculars pointing at the sun sounds dangerous.
- dekhn 9y agoI got lucky while testing my camera, which is mounted at prime focus in a refractor scope. I had it in Live View which meant the mirror was up, and I removed the solar filter for just a second. The camera said "error", turned off, I replaced the solar filter, and it was fine. Much longer, and I'd have had a burn. The telescope really collects and concentrates a ton of light.
- lostlogin 9y agoAccording to the thread above, the telescopic lens is safer to use than a shorter one. Only here would someone give a mathematical proof!
- stan_rogers 9y agoNo, a slower lens (higher f-number, or, actually, T-number) is safer than a faster lens. It's only a practical accident that a long "telephoto" lens is usually significantly slower than a lens closer to normal for the format (and that the long end of a consumer zoom is usually slower than the wide end). A 600mm f/4 lens is an eye-wateringly expensive hulking monster; a 50mm f/1.8 lens is the proverbial cheap-as-chips (with some exceptions), but will let about 5-6 times the amount of light through to be imaged on the sensor - it'll burn a smaller hole, but do it much more quickly. Should you be able too find a 600mm lens with the same T-number (similar to the f-number, but taking transmissivity losses into account), it'll do the job just as quickly, but much more thoroughly.
- dekhn 9y agoActually, this was a self-built telescope. It was a 3.5" apochromatic 900mm focal length lens adapted to a T-mount. If you remove the camera, and point the scope at the sun, there's a good sensor-sized beam of intense sunlight at focus.
- justin66 9y agoThe amusing bit is at the end, where the author tacitly admits that their add-on camera insurance is somewhat crap. Someone who damaged a rental camera by pointing it at the eclipse would, ironically, have been better off if they then proceeded to "accidentally" drop the camera from a height onto concrete: Unfortunately, these types of damage are considered neglect, as warnings were given out to customers before the solar eclipse. Our LensCap insurance plan, which can be added to rentals for a small nominal fee, does not protect from neglect but is an excellent tool for those who are worried about their rental and want to protect themselves from any accidental damage. (but perhaps not really - there are enough wiggle words in that policy that I wonder if they ever pay out on expensive damage at all: https://help.lensrentals.com/26475-damage-lenscap-protection-plans/203113-what-is-covered-by-the-standard-lenscap-protection-plan https://help.lensrentals.com/26475-damage-lenscap-protection... )
- mindslight 9y agoA camera is repairable, so it's not like they throw out the entire "broken" item. Dropping the camera would have just created a second problem. It's an interesting line, between accident and neglect. Reading the article, my initial reaction was that it is ridiculous for their insurance to not cover this damage. But yet in general I do enjoy the non-diligent actually retaining some moral hazard. This "absent agency" problem is usually addressed with a deductible, but that still doesn't fully price in the cost of easily-prevented damage. Recently renting a box truck and not wanting to be on the hook for a $150k piece of capital equipment, I got the damage waiver. But I had wished for a cheaper policy that would have excluded damage from low drive-throughs and parking garages, which presumably makes up the majority of their claims. Alas.
- justin66 9y ago> A camera is repairable, so it's not like they throw out the entire "broken" item. Dropping the camera would have just created a second problem. That's the irony about insurance that I was pointing out. The much worse situation would have been covered.
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- jonknee 9y agoThose were some expensive mistakes. Some of the gear mentioned: Canon C300 Mark II ($9,999) and Canon 600mm f/4L IS II USM ($11,499).
- sapienthomo 9y agoNobody is going to throw that gear away. They'll replace the diaphragms but the glass and body should be fine.
- jonknee 9y agoNo, but expensive things have expensive parts/repairs. Just pointing out for those not in the field that this was pro level gear.
- IgorPartola 9y agoI wonder, did they include a solar filter with all their rentals? If not, I wonder if that would have saved everyone some trouble.
- Laforet 9y agoProbably not, they are expensive, fragile and have very limited utility outside a major eclipse event. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1335775-REG/formatt_hitech_fc95eclp5_4_firecrest_95mm_eclipse_5_4.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1335775-REG/formatt_h...
- dboreham 9y agoLuckily I bought mine from Amazon and due to the ISO certification debacle they refunded my money and allowed me to keep it.
- branchan 9y agoMost people don't buy expensive screw-on types like these for a one-time event. You buy some solar filter film and fabricate yourself a lens cover out of cardboard for about $10.
- jtl999 9y agoI used a Canon 80D with a EF-S 55-250mm lens and a solar filter film over the lens. My camera was fine. https://imgur.com/a/OmPQP https://imgur.com/a/OmPQP Taken in rural Oregon (just two shots I selected at random for this post)
- nazz 9y agoI was shooting with a d800 200mm lens, no filter. There is no visible sensor damage, both when examining images and the sensor itself. I have to check out the lens. I left it on the sun for a good 20 minutes in live view but there doesn't seem to be any damage. Thoughts?
- 549362-30499 9y agoWere you using a motorized tripod set to track the sun? I would guess that was the cause of the most extreme damage.
- pasbesoin 9y agoA lot of phone cameras seem to have come through (apparently) unscathed. Both pictures and video. Too small a collector/concentrator, or enough shaking because hand-held to keep the focal point moving?
- yeukhon 9y agoOn the day of this event I was at the hospital and everyone just used X-ray films. They work well enough. I also did try a pair of sunglasses, and I could last maybe for a second or two. I am not sure if my eye sights have been damaged since then. I hope not... I repeated a few times but all done around 1pm-ish in NY, so not at peak. It was more like looking directly at the sun during noon everyday.
- dboreham 9y agoSince others are posting their images figured I'd pitch in: https://g2.img-dpreview.com/8D7D9675C7AE4E6EAEF707CB4AEABB2F.jpg https://g2.img-dpreview.com/8D7D9675C7AE4E6EAEF707CB4AEABB2F... Canon 100-400 @400mm +1.4x tc, solar filter removed.
- basicplus2 9y agoIt is not just at the focal point but multilayered lenses can be destroyed as the expand and contract and heat is emminated from the join and also Any lense with coatings to correct for chromatic abberation, the coatings get destroyed on the surface of the lenses just by being pointed at the sun.
- exodust 9y agoAnyone who doesn't take their glasses off and look at the total eclipse for a moment when the sun is completely covered, is missing out. It's a beautiful sight. Caution is needed of course. Get ready to put those glasses back on any moment now! Incredible hues and glow and the surrounding twilight. Can't see any of that with glasses on. At totality, sneak a peek with your naked eyes, it's fine. Same for camera equipment, it's the setting up and pointing the camera at sun before the eclipse that does the damage. Keep lens cap on until last moment, then take off, and nothing will happen to camera. I've done it at two eclipse festivals, no clouds, didn't even use ND filter! Cameras and eyes fine.
- odbol_ 9y agoDoes the eclipse make the sun stronger or something? I've pointed my camera at the sun for all day long taking timelapses and nothing bad happened to it. I guess maybe you need a really hardcore zoom lens to get damage like that... P.S. Here's the video pointing at the sun all day long: https://youtu.be/HgbG--t3Bd8 https://youtu.be/HgbG--t3Bd8
- banned1 9y agoI can almost feel the LensRental writer's pain of having to write this article without calling a bunch of dumbaxxes dumbaxxes because they are their customers. sigh