how to safely film a laser lense flare?

[proxy002]

A friend needs to shoot a bar code scanner with a digital video camera, where at some point the beam will point directly at the camera. He wants to get this pretty interference, flare, speckle patten i think http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/83567146/sizes/l/. He's concerned that the beam may damage the sensor, and depending on the gear this could be a few thousand dollars to repair or replace. Does anyone know how to shoot something like a bar scanner safetly? is there a way to find the class/rating of the laser, and what the recording device is capable of safely viewing?
thanks

 

[Patriot]

:welcome:

I'm not an expert on laser scanners or camera sensors but I wanted to at least answer with what I know since the responses may be few.

The output power should be labeled on the scanner itself somewhere. I'm guessing that these scanners are 5mW or less since they project and open beam where someone could potentially look into it. A diode that's only 5mW or less is going to be exponentially weaker the more spread out or flattened it gets, as in the case of these bar code scanners. The end result is that it's becomes very weak in intensity and therefore shouldn't effect the camera CCD in any way. To put it in perspective, sunlight reflecting off of a glass surface or mirror would be far more intense than even a spot focused 1-5mW laser, and general purpose CCDs have no problem dealing with bright flashes in these instances.

I've personally taken pictures of many higher powered lasers up to 150mW green and 320mW red with no ill effects to my camera. Even though I would never shine a focused, high power 150mW laser directly into the lens, it usually gets hit with very strong scattered light in the process. As I stated, there have been no negative effects to the camera.

I hope that helps.

 

[jhosaki]

Barcode scanners are usually class II (<1mW) and would therefore be unlikely to damage anything at all. The energy density would be roughly equivalent to photographing a light bulb from close up, so I wouldn't be too concerned.