Infared light and photography

I have a friend in college who has become annoyed that I don't post pictures of myself online, like all of her friends. I can't think of anything good and quite a few things bad that can come of having pictures of yourself available to the entire internet community, especially pictures that would be taken in a college setting.

This friend has now vowed to take pictures of me, every chance she gets and post them online. I am looking for the flashaholic's defense against this nonconsentual photography.

So my question is this; is there a moderately sized infared flashlight that will overexpose a picture taken with a film/digital camera enough to wipe out most or all of the image? Is there a better way to disable a camera than this? If you can't tell, I'm having a bit of fun with the whole thing, so if you have any humorous suggestions, please post them as well as the serious ones.

You could use an infra-red laser. It would also destroy the image sensor on the camera.

Extremely bright light sources can also destroy sensors. Lasers would probably be the best way to achieve this. Most cameras have an infrared 'hot mirror' to deflect IR but you might be able to punch through with enough juice. I recall Inretech has destroyed one of their own cameras (or at least severely damaged it) with the light output of a cyan Helios-6 (6 x cyan LuxV). It never worked quite the same again after that dosing.

Some of these kids really are a pain.. I have to deal with people at their level (actually far worse), and there are times where I just wish..... never mind.

These people are not worth being friends with. A restraining order would go a long way.

I think my first post made the situation seem more severe than it actually is. I am not worried about any real problems with this person. She believes that I need to be more social (be more like her), and post pictures of myself as well as blogs and the like. I do not see any reason to do this, and as I am perfectly happy with my life, no reason to change my social habits. Speaking from a psycology point of view (not my major, so don't be too hard on me) this girl is insecure with her own social life, and feels that if she has friends with similar habits (weather she has to make friends like this or change the ones she has) then her social life becomes justified.

I have never liked people telling me how to live my life, and have so far refused to make any changes to it. Thwarting her picture taking, is something that I think will be quite entertaining, although I am sure that if I asked her seriously, she would not post any pictures she did get of me.

The cyan luxeons sound interesting, although I still think the invisibility of infared light is more fun.

If you think about it.. any laser of high magnitude, pointed at the camera's lense should be strong enough to create a red "hole" in the picture.

I presume this camera will be digital, as the photo will be downloaded to a computer... Hmm... I dont know if it would work...

Do you have a camera that you could test with?

-tom

regarding the suggestions to use lasers: I'm going to assume that the posters were just joking around. Shining a laser at the camera usually means shining it in the vicinity of the photographer's eyes too, and I don't need to remind anyone of why this is dangerous.

Instead of damaging the camera (not a very friendly thing to do), how about just jamming the focusing mechanism?? Maybe a strobed high intensity light, either IR or not, might confuse the camera? This is the principle used to confuse heatseeking missiles, so perhaps it would work with a camera.

or... just keep a squirt gun handy, and nail the friend every time she pulls out that *&^% camera?

Steve K.

Find an external flash unit for cameras with a built in 'slave'. Keep it close to your face but aimed at the camera lens.
When the paparazzi takes a shot, your flash will sync with it, blowing out the area around your face.

Of course this will only work when your friend is using the flash on her camera.
Not a flashlight solutiuon either.

At least its not like the kids who shove cellphone cameras down other peoples pants/skirts, take a picture, then upload it to the internet with the persons address or school, complete with name and phone number, and with the description "PEDOPHILES COME HERE IM UR DREAM"
Man. I can't belive the people in my area can do this at school.

A water pistol can work wonders... ------>SPHLUT!!

Oh yeah, lasers are most assuredly not eye safe. Anything powerful enough to destroy electronics will most assuredly have retina-frying capabilities. I was thinking more along the lines of taking out static, planted surveilliance cams (where you can take it out without harming anybody).

Glad to hear the situation is not as bad as as I imagined it to be. Sadly I have to deal with information warfare situations from time to time, and it can get ugly.

I love Nekomane's idea of the optical slave flash.

Water pistol is awesome too, most casual snapshooters would not be willing to put their cameras at this level of risk.

Another thing that occured to me, is that point and shoot cameras typically have very slow autofocus that's easy to foil in low light. The moment you notice her pulling out the camera, duck and they're not likely to get you. I recently 'ducked' a photo at an event that I was attending and not willing to be photographed. I saw the camera coming up, and I pretended to be looking for something in my bag just as the flash went off, so my head was down (not a serious situation, just that I didn't feel like having a picture taken that day when I wasn't feeling on top of the world)

Of course, a Surefire M3 or M3T straight into the face of the photographer would make it difficult for THEM, not to mention the camera, to aim at you too.. make sure you take the HIGH output lamps! Even in the day it is possible to successfully 'blind' the camera if held near your face, or throw the light metering off sufficiently to screw up the exposure big time. This, together with the fact that they have to hold the point and shoot camera on target for 1-2 seconds to allow autofocus to lock on, makes it very uncomfortable for them.