Trashman
Flashlight Enthusiast
I'm just wondering, will shooting a green laser directly into the lens of a digital camera damage the imaging sensor or anything else in the camera?
Effect of lasers on digital cameras?
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B@rt
Flashaholic
You will end up with black spots where the CCD chip is burned by the laser. 
wvaltakis2
Enlightened
You will end up with black spots where the CCD chip is burned by the laser.
Second that, my buddy's phone has "pinholes" from playing around a bit too much. If I can get him over this weekend I'll see if I can post some relevant pics.
~Chip
B@rt
Flashaholic
wvaltakis2
Enlightened
Heh, notice the lack of a price...
jtice
Flashaholic
A laser will definately ruin a camera.
Treat it like your eyes,
The beam swinging across the lens a few times shouldnt do much, but never let it stay on the lens for any amount of time.
I have taken photos, and video of my laser scanners, etc.
With the camera right in the scanning pattern with no problems.... yet.
~John
Treat it like your eyes,
The beam swinging across the lens a few times shouldnt do much, but never let it stay on the lens for any amount of time.
I have taken photos, and video of my laser scanners, etc.
With the camera right in the scanning pattern with no problems.... yet.
~John
Trashman
Flashlight Enthusiast
Would green have a greater damaging effect than red? I actually wasn't fully expecting to hear that a laser would do damage, as I thought that there would be some type of coating on the lenses to prevent it.
It's not so much the colour, it's the amount of energy directed at the CCD. A 100mw red will fairly toast your camera too.
That would be impressive. If the US Army can't get a set of optics that totally protects soldiers from laser attacks, why on earth would Sony or, more likely, the lowest bidder, put dozens of expensive optical coatings on the cheap CMOS camera in your phone, just in case you decide to blind it with a laser system?
Non-linear optics would be the only way to do it, and they are expensive and tricky, especially across multiple frequencies. More than the cost of your phone. Possibly more than the cost of the cell tower.
[email protected]
Newly Enlightened
As an expert on CCD imagers for 15 years, I can tell you that such a laser will be focused onto the ccd imager pixels (the dots that make up a picture) and WILL overheat those pixels affected. The imager is bolted onto a "heat sink" which dissapated the heat from both the imager's generated heat and heat from focused bright light. A` laser will overheat the pixel, damaging it. They aren't designed to handle such rapid and intense heating, and the semiconductor material will be destroyed, for those pixels, and possiblt adjacent ones too! DON'T DO IT!! Please trust me on this. I helped develope the heatsinks for such imagers to reduce damage when someone 'shoots' the sun, or gets a reflection off of the sun from a chrome bumper, etc. They are just not capable of dissapating a laser's heat, especially when focused to a pinpoint from the camera's lens.
Peterlaser.
