Will the Solar Eclipse fry my camera?!

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nbstl68

Getting comfortable
Dec 15, 2015
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I happen to live in a section of Missouri that will be in the narrow band to see a "totality" view of the upcoming solar eclipse on Monday 08/21/17.

So, I was thinking, hey, point one of my HDW5231R-Z's up at the sky and record the whole eclipse, maybe figure out how to do a time laps of it...it would be really cool.

But now I'm hearing people say, "oh, don't even take a picture of it or you will fry your camera sensor!".
I don't really understand the science of how or why it would damage the camera but I assume that it is possible...after all it would fry your eyes which are just human camera sensors.

So would this be a really bad idea that would indeed fry my camera?
What other options are there, if any for getting a video of the eclipse event?
 
A friend of mine is going to southern Illinois to view the eclipse and wants to take pictures. He has heard the same thing. He ended up getting a special filter for his camera so he would not fry the sensor. Good luck getting the filter, he found most suppliers were out of stock.
 
I have the cardboard "special viewing glasses". (You can't even see through them).
Maybe I could pop the plastic lens of one and tape it over the camera lens but I'd bet at best that would blur the image and worse, still damage the camera.
I will not chance it unless someone can confirm it would not be an issue.
 
I feel now would be a good time to point out that plenty of security cameras are pointed high enough to see the sun and are completely fine afterward.

Also I think you would be disappointed by the zooming abilities of a 5231R-Z (34 degree horizontal FOV fully zoomed) versus the sun (0.5 degree circle in the sky).

Perhaps if you were to take a really high zoom camera and zoom it in close enough that any set of pixels were exposed to the intense brightness for longer than a few minutes at a time, then maybe you'd do some damage. I don't know.
 
I'm in the totality also, but none of my cameras are pointed high enough to see the sun mid-day. I'm really interested to see the view of normal earth stuff during this. The yard going dark, animals, etc. i'll be sure to save my footage from the eclipse time.
 
bp2008 said:
I feel now would be a good time to point out that plenty of security cameras are pointed high enough to see the sun and are completely fine afterward.
Click to expand...

One of mine that necessarily must face west has been blasted every day for years now and I see no difference. It's not absolutely direct but pretty close as the sun gets lower. Enough to be completely unusable toward the last hours of the day until the sun sets. But then it's also one that I don't really care much about and it kind of sucked to begin with so...
 
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