# Industry News: Sony officially warns about CIS laser damage



## Canon Rumors Guy (Aug 2, 2021)

> Sony has released an official warning about CIS laser damage to CMOS image sensors. I imagine there have been some recently damaged cameras from laser lights in recent months that brought about this official warning.
> From Sony:
> Do not directly expose the Lens to beams such as laser beams. This may cause damage to the image sensor and cause the camera to malfunction.
> *Note: *In either outdoor or indoor environment when there is a laser display, tendency of direct or indirect (laser beam bounce from reflective object) damage to the camera CMOS Sensor is still very high.
> This risk doesn’t just affect Sony CMOS sensors obviously, always take care of your camera around laser light presentations. There have been mentions of the risk lasers pose to camera sensors in the past, as we saw people showing the issue once videography became a big part of interchangeable lens camera usage.



Continue reading...


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## Maximilian (Aug 2, 2021)

Funny 
I think, it was more than 10 years ago, that I heard that lasers could damage imaging sensors.
I think, it was about the same time I got into a quarrel with a father as I told his son not to point at me and my camera with his green laser pointer.
The father just couldn't understand why I didn't talked to him first.
And I told him that I would have done if he had been there in place and that these 5 or more mW lasers are no toys and could also harm eyes.
But he was not open to arguments. 

I suppose today his son is plane spotting with his laser still not knowing what he is doing.


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## EOS 4 Life (Aug 2, 2021)

FYI. 
All camera owners should heed this warning.
Lasers are not out to get Sony.


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## kalieaire (Aug 2, 2021)

What's a CIS Laser? or is it a gender thing?


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## InchMetric (Aug 2, 2021)

Reminds me of my favorite warning label:

"CAUTION! - Do not stare into beam with remaining eye!"


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## SV (Aug 2, 2021)

Sony is channeling Dr. Evil... "LASER"


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## Dragon (Aug 2, 2021)

The downside of mirrorless cameras compared to SLRs is that the sensor will be damaged instead of the eye of the fool pointing the camera at a laser. (sarc off)


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## Shellbo6901 (Aug 3, 2021)

So is that the laser that you can’t point in your eye and is illegal to point at airplanes etc? Is there a difference between those and a laser that would be at say a concert(because wouldn’t those have to not be pointed into the crowd for the safety of the fans eyes). I don’t believe I’ve yet to photograph a concert with lasers(at least none that haven’t only aimed for the roof of an arena/etc.) never heard of them specified as CIS, just laser pointer.


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 3, 2021)

Lasers in concerts or night clubs usually have to move to fast that they will only hit your eye 1/100 of a second or so. That should not cause any damage to your eyes. Direct sunlight should be a much bigger problem for your eyes and I saw photos of cameras melting after someone took a photo of the sun with a tele lens. 

The problem is that today there are more and more lasers in the invisible spectrum. Either ultraviolet or infrared. If you can't see the light, you might not look away or with your eyes or your camera. Invisible lasers can be so powerful that you can melt or cut things with them. That is quite creepy. The US are working on lasers that can shoot down planes. Those lasers are also invisible. 

I wonder how powerful lidar lasers in self driving cars are allowed to be, as they should have enough power to "see" things in a few hundred metres distance. A future with self driving cars would meand that lasers would hit our eyes all the time, if cars are nearby.


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## Joules (Aug 3, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> Lasers in concerts or night clubs usually have to move to fast that they will only hit your eye 1/100 of a second or so. That should not cause any damage to your eyes. Direct sunlight should be a much bigger problem for your eyes and I saw photos of cameras melting after someone took a photo of the sun with a tele lens.
> 
> The problem is that today there are more and more lasers in the invisible spectrum. Either ultraviolet or infrared. If you can't see the light, you might not look away or with your eyes or your camera. Invisible lasers can be so powerful that you can melt or cut things with them. That is quite creepy. The US are working on lasers that can shoot down planes. Those lasers are also invisible.
> 
> I wonder how powerful lidar lasers in self driving cars are allowed to be, as they should have enough power to "see" things in a few hundred metres distance. A future with self driving cars would meand that lasers would hit our eyes all the time, if cars are nearby.


For what it is worth, the problem of invisible (Ultraviolet and Infrared) light in lasers is relevant to the cheap lasers you'll get from sites like eBay. Those can use a crystal to convert invisible light to visible light, but if they are cheap are inefficient at doing so, leading to powerful invisible laser beams alongside the visible one.

Not to mention that they are frequently labeled with wrong technical specs. Not everything sold as safe actually is so. Terrifying demonstration by the crazy laser guy on YouTube:






Car equipment and manufacturing is highly regulated, I don't worry too much about that. But in cameras, the invisible light is absorbed by the color filter in front of the pixels, so I suppose those will warm up when exposed to lasers and may get damaged.


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 3, 2021)

In Germany only pocket lasers mit 1 mW or less are legal without special permission. In think in the US the limit is 5 mW, but in China there does not seem to be a limit. I bought a 50 mW laser in Beijing and the beam was already visible from the side. Felt like a laser sword, but on Ali Express you can buy 500 mW lasers. That's 500 times the maximum legal amount in Germany, but until you turm them on, they look like a small harmless pocket laser. 

The green lasers look the brightest. I think the purple ones are the most dangerous, because they do not look very bright, but still have the same power and most of their power might produce invisible light. 

Modern cameras have strong infrared filter built in. I think for the UV spectrum you might need an external UV filter, but that might spoil the image quality, as it is another piece of glass that can produce additional flares.


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## Del Paso (Aug 3, 2021)

Maximilian said:


> Funny
> I think, it was more than 10 years ago, that I heard that lasers could damage imaging sensors.
> I think, it was about the same time I got into a quarrel with a father as I told his son not to point at me and my camera with his green laser pointer.
> The father just couldn't understand why I didn't talked to him first.
> ...


Cole's axiom:"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing".


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## Kit Chan (Aug 3, 2021)

My laser came out as a lightbulb, so it should be fine.


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## Rofocale (Aug 3, 2021)

Hmmm, wonder if there’s any damaged caused by prolonged exposure to low powered VSCEL lasers used for facial recognition in mobile phones or LIDAR.


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## dtaylor (Aug 3, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> I wonder how powerful lidar lasers in self driving cars are allowed to be, as they should have enough power to "see" things in a few hundred metres distance. A future with self driving cars would meand that lasers would hit our eyes all the time, if cars are nearby.


I believe Tesla uses cameras only, but the rest are using lidar as well. IMHO they shouldn't be allowed to. There hasn't been any where near sufficient study to determine safe wavelengths and power levels, if any, in the chaos of the real world. It's nothing like radio where you have a relatively constant exposure that drops off with distance according to the inverse square law. You have nothing, nothing, nothing, then a massive exposure at a single random point on your body or equipment. And while I would think, given the nature of laser manufacturing and operation, that wavelength and power level would not vary much in production, we have dangerously out of spec laser pointers coming from China all the time. What happens if a lidar is out of spec? I imagine they can also vary power output depending on distances they need to cover (traffic versus rural). What happens when that bugs out? What happens when that bugs out at the same time that the emitter jams, holding the laser on a single point for seconds?

I wouldn't allow lidar at all outside of military and industrial niches which severely limit use/exposure. But this generation thinks that everything should move at the tempo of computing and the Internet, and jumps head first into new waters. Often in the middle of the night with no moon.


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## Kit Chan (Aug 3, 2021)

Rofocale said:


> Hmmm, wonder if there’s any damaged caused by prolonged exposure to low powered VSCEL lasers used for facial recognition in mobile phones


If that were the case, I think it would damage the phone's camera and we'd have heard about it.


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## Rofocale (Aug 4, 2021)

Kit Chan said:


> If that were the case, I think it would damage the phone's camera and we'd have heard about it.


Yeah, but the lasers are pointed outward not at the phone’s camera. Even so, I doubt they’re of a strength to do damage to a sensor directly aimed at the emitter or we would of heard about it. Would be good to get confirmation, though.


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## smfpics (Aug 4, 2021)

Yep, this is a real problem, I do many music shoots. Several years ago I noticed a strange issue with the images coming off my 7D mk1, there was a faint line of dots / short lines appearing in all my photos. always in the same place in the images. By tracked back through images worked out it was due to a laser at a music event, The laser was over the peoples head, but I managed to get the camera in the way of the laser doing a over crowd to stage shot. Gave me a reason to update my kit.


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## SereneSpeed (Aug 4, 2021)

Man's $1,998 Camera Fried by Self-Driving Car Laser


Self-driving cars widely use a technology called lidar (which stands for light detection and ranging) to "see" the world using laser pulses. These lasers




petapixel.com


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## SteveC (Aug 4, 2021)

SereneSpeed said:


> Man's $1,998 Camera Fried by Self-Driving Car Laser
> 
> 
> Self-driving cars widely use a technology called lidar (which stands for light detection and ranging) to "see" the world using laser pulses. These lasers
> ...



If the guy had just sprung for the $1999 model he'd have been OK.


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## dtaylor (Aug 4, 2021)

SteveC said:


> If the guy had just sprung for the $1999 model he'd have been OK.


Now we know the new feature of the future R1.


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 4, 2021)

dtaylor said:


> Now we know the new feature of the future R1.


So the R1 will be able to thwart Dr. Evil?


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## randfee (Aug 4, 2021)

somebody please help me out here, what is a *CIS* laser?
Funny I need to ask, because I honestly am a senior laser physicist and semiconductor scientist and I've never heard the term. I can only imagine these are class 4 lasers used for light shows?... but the terminology, seriously, never heard of it.

As to laser damaging thresholds of imaging sensors, yes, I'm well aware. For high power beams in the lab I've never had an issue though. I either use a laser filter (to block that wavelength) if I want to observe the plasma of something irradiated by laser for instance or, I use a second grade camera, maybe a small aperture and higher ISO. What I never would do is scan a laser beam across the lens just like I wouldn't do that with my eyes so in my use cases whenever I'd like to take an awesome photo/video of some laser process, I usually photograph something else irradiated by the laser beam (and thus scattering off it) or the beam itself scattering in air or I filter out the laser's wavelength altogether.

So not knowing what these folks are talking about (CIS). Nothing helps but less light. Higher shutter speed obviously only helps when using film


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## Nemorino (Aug 4, 2021)

randfee said:


> what is a *CIS* laser?


It is not a cis laser. CIS means compact image sensor which is damaged by a laser


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## randfee (Aug 4, 2021)

haha...ok, thx.
Now that terminology is an unnecessary constraint then. The sensor's size does not matter when it comes to laser damage. All that matters is the damaging threshold as a function of intensity, wavelength and sensor material (and short pulsed lasers will kill off the sensors even faster but nobody should use pulsed lasers for filming or photography who has no clue about what they're doing)
Maybe that is why I didn't even think twice about CIS having to be some sort of laser type (that I'm unfamiliar with). Any class four laser can damage a sensor. The better (sharper) the lens, the higher the probability of the damage ;-)


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## SteveC (Aug 4, 2021)

randfee said:


> haha...ok, thx.
> Now that terminology is an unnecessary constraint then. The sensor's size does not matter when it comes to laser damage. All that matters is the damaging threshold as a function of intensity, wavelength and sensor material (and short pulsed lasers will kill off the sensors even faster but nobody should use pulsed lasers for filming or photography who has no clue about what they're doing)
> Maybe that is why I didn't even think twice about CIS having to be some sort of laser type (that I'm unfamiliar with). Any class four laser can damage a sensor. The better (sharper) the lens, the higher the probability of the damage ;-)


Thank you for a very _coherent_ post.


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## PilslF (Aug 4, 2021)

hmmm, maybe another reason to have a modern say E, R or EF mount film camera, just for those days you need to shoot lasers, etc


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 4, 2021)

Even without lasers I don't think that it is a good idea that the sensor is exposed to light all the time if the camera is turned on. With a DSLR you can shoot 1,000 photos with an exposure of 1/200 second each and the sensor will only be exposed for 5 seconds combined. Powering the sensor all the time will warm it up an increase noise and it might also make hot pixels more likely. With my DSLR I even felt bad when I made a short video, because that single video used more sensor time than thousands of photos at daytime.


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## EOS 4 Life (Aug 5, 2021)

randfee said:


> nobody should use pulsed lasers for filming or photography who has no clue about what they're doing


1) I do not think that is what is going on here. People are using cameras in places that have lasers.
2) There are remote focus systems that use LIDAR but I have never heard of this happening with them.


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## Sean C (Aug 5, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> The green lasers look the brightest. I think the purple ones are the most dangerous, because they do not look very bright, but still have the same power and most of their power might produce invisible light.


It's the total energy in the light. UV short wavelength light is more energetic than IR. (so violet lasers need more care) *For the same apparent brightness*, green lasers are safer simply because we see green better so a less powerful laser 'looks' as bright.


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## EOS 4 Life (Aug 5, 2021)

I am just linking this article for the embedded YouTube videos which show the damage happening in real-time,








Sony Says: “Do not directly expose the lens to laser beams” - YMCinema - News & Insights on Digital Cinema


Sony has officially published a warning regarding laser damage when the sensor is directly exposed to a laser beam. Although it’s obvious, not many are familiar that a laser beam can destroy your camera sensor. Even if it’s cool, you should avoid shooting between lasers. Read on to understand...




 ymcinema.com


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## John Wilde (Aug 5, 2021)

Other Industry News is that Nikon released their quarterly financials today.



Nikon | Investor Relations | Financial Results and Presentation Materials


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## randfee (Aug 5, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> Even without lasers I don't think that it is a good idea that the sensor is exposed to light all the time if the camera is turned on. With a DSLR you can shoot 1,000 photos with an exposure of 1/200 second each and the sensor will only be exposed for 5 seconds combined. Powering the sensor all the time will warm it up an increase noise and it might also make hot pixels more likely. With my DSLR I even felt bad when I made a short video, because that single video used more sensor time than thousands of photos at daytime.


true, but you're constructing a scenario that isn't real, IMHO. 
First of all, if the radiation is strong enough to damage the sensor, it sure as hell would damage your retina looking through the viewfinder. Secondly, good DSLM like my R5 have a proper mechanical shutter that is closed when the camera is shut down, problem solved. The only real advantage is when turned off without lens-cap while looking towards the sun (or a strong (!) laser), the DSLR will just pass most of the energy through the viewfinder and out the back while the shutter curtain of the mirrorless will absorb at least all the visible light (since it's black) and heat up... possibly beyond the point of permanent damage (not sure about the IR reflectance, if they're smart, it's IR reflective).
So there is no damage threshold advantage of the DSLR over the mirrorless while using them. If you are using your camera in situations with lasers >class3, I'd much rather have that laser damage the sensor than my eye!... at least that's my opinion ;-)



EOS 4 Life said:


> 1) I do not think that is what is going on here. People are using cameras in places that have lasers.
> 2) There are remote focus systems that use LIDAR but I have never heard of this happening with them.


1) yes, I get that. Some laser show which is probably running way above legal laser safety specs... otherwise it wouldn't harm a silicon chip
2) the strength of the LIDAR beams is also covered by laser safety regulations. On top of that, the lidar scans as fast as the mechanics and electronics provide, rotating for example. On top of that, the laser dots for LIDAR are usually divergent so they have a certain size. nobody wants super small dots everywhere, it's much more robust if they're larger. Therefore, the intensity is much smaller than with an ordinary laser pointer. 
On top of that, a LIDAR usually works in the infrared so that humans won't see the dots/lines... it would drive us all insane otherwise. In the infrared, the optical absorption depth in silicon chips is much longer meaning that the "energy per volume" is smaller in an imaging chip. Also the overall quantum efficiency is smaller meaning less of the infrared photons even cause a signal. More importantly though, almost all camera sensors for RGB (colored) image acquisition have an infrared blocking filter (usually reflecting IR away) so that images look familiar to how we see things. Therefore, an IR laser is unlikely to cause damage to the sensor!! Obviously though the sensors detecting the LIDAR don't have those filters, they might in fact have the opposite, a filter that only lets light of the IR LIDAR wavelength pass so they ONLY see the dots projected and such.




Sean C said:


> It's the total energy in the light. UV short wavelength light is more energetic than IR. (so violet lasers need more care) *For the same apparent brightness*, green lasers are safer simply because we see green better so a less powerful laser 'looks' as bright.


two things: 
first of all you're right, the energy of UV photons is higher than that of IR but that's not the reason the intensity threshold for damaging silicon based imaging chips or photodiodes is much lower in the UV. It's the absorption depth. UV photons get absorbed within <20nm (nanometers) whilst IR photons penetrate hundreds of micrometers or millimeters (depending on the wavelength) into the silicon before being absorbed. Thus, the energy per volume is much higher on the surface of the silicon chip when irradiated with UV. 

You're right but also wrong on perceived brightness and deducting danger from that. At the same power, blue/violet and red lasers seems dimmer than green. True UV and IR lasers can't be seen by us directly but you might see some glow from luminescense or fluorescence... something like a black light effect. However IR lasers are even more dangerous than UV ones for the fact that UV lasers primarily won't damage your retina but the cornea or lens. IR lasers usually are more powerful and totally invisible (no fluorescense without special materials).

Bottom line. All visible lasers are a bit safer because people can see them and your eye/iris actually reacts, you blink, shut your eye, look away. Outside the visible spectrum, none of that happens. Then again... if the laser is strong, your reaction time is MUCH too small to prevent damage to your eye, so NO LASER WAVELENGTH is safer than the other if the power is too high ;-)


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 5, 2021)

randfee said:


> true, but you're constructing a scenario that isn't real, IMHO.
> First of all, if the radiation is strong enough to damage the sensor, it sure as hell would damage your retina looking through the viewfinder. Secondly, good DSLM like my R5 have a proper mechanical shutter that is closed when the camera is shut down, problem solved. The only real advantage is when turned off without lens-cap while looking towards the sun (or a strong (!) laser), the DSLR will just pass most of the energy through the viewfinder and out the back while the shutter curtain of the mirrorless will absorb at least all the visible light (since it's black) and heat up... possibly beyond the point of permanent damage (not sure about the IR reflectance, if they're smart, it's IR reflective).
> So there is no damage threshold advantage of the DSLR over the mirrorless while using them. If you are using your camera in situations with lasers >class3, I'd much rather have that laser damage the sensor than my eye!... at least that's my opinion ;-)


One article said that image sensors are 1000 times as sensible to lasers than the human eye. And if the laser is in focus, it is exactly focussed on a tiny part of the sensor and will cause maximum damage there.


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## randfee (Aug 5, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> One article said that image sensors are 1000 times as sensible to lasers than the human eye. And if the laser is in focus, it is exactly focussed on a tiny part of the sensor and will cause maximum damage there.


really? hm...
Please specify what you mean by "sensible" - I don't understand what you mean by that ... the sensors surely have no feelings?! ;-)

If you mean "sensitive" as in damageable then I'd like to see that article. As a matter of fact, I'm an expert on laser <-> silicon interaction and damage thresholds and I would LOVE to see this as I do not believe that to be the case.

If you mean "sensitive" as in good receivers: Image sensors are certainly NOT 1000x more sensitive to detect laser-photons in the visible spectrum compared to (good) human eyes. image sensors can detect the lasers much better (that's true for certain wavelengths outside the human visible spectrum but in the visible spectrum, the human eye can also detect single photons in the best case).


=====
One thing to remember. Some lenses have a MUCH larger aperture than a human eye. Therefore sure, if I widen a laserbeam to 50mm diameter AND a lens actually has that aperture, the focused spot will have 100 times the intensity compared to the same laser beam irradiating my face (with a 5mm pupil diameter). So in that sense, the optical systems, especially of large aperture lenses can focus a lot more laser power when collecting larger/divergent laser beams. So for show lasers, the intensity (power per area) is often limited by widening the beams. This does NOT mean,that silicon sensory can't take much higher intensity than the human eye (because they definitely can) BUT, depending on the lens in front of them, they'll be irradiated by MUCH higher intensity in the first place.

What helps against lasers --> less intense light!
That's why I stated above: close that aperture, thus bump the ISO! 

A class 1 laser(pointer) will not damage your camera, no matter the lens, regardless of color/wavelength. 
I guarantee it!


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## TAF (Aug 5, 2021)

This really reads like the lawyers reviewed the press release copy. The folks who operate laser light shows are using lasers with sufficiently high output to damage the sensor in your camera. That's it. Don't expose your camera to the laser beams, because it will damage them.

That the FDA allows such high power lasers (the ao-called professional models are over a watt, which is crazy when peoples eyes can actually be exposed to them) seems a bit questionable to me. They are apparently counting on the fact that the beams sweep by very fast. The fact that camera sensors get damaged seems to suggest that it might not be such a good idea for peoples eyes either.


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 5, 2021)

randfee said:


> If you mean "sensitive" as in damageable then I'd like to see that article. As a matter of fact, I'm an expert on laser <-> silicon interaction and damage thresholds and I would LOVE to see this as I do not believe that to be the case.


That 1000x figure comes from the article posted one page ago: https://petapixel.com/2019/01/12/mans-1998-mirrorless-camera-fried-by-self-driving-car-laser


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## randfee (Aug 6, 2021)

I just had a read and it seems that in the US all this craziness shown in videos is legal in the US for instance. For shows 100W+ lasers are apparently legal to be pointed INTO crowds, ridiculous! All of that is ILLEGAL in the EU! Here, the angle-space must be limited in such a way that the laser can never reach the crowd and thus not point into their faces/eyes.

The statement from the LIDAR (AEye) CEO Luis Dussan is total BS!
"his company’s lidars are completely safe for human eyes but didn’t deny that they are capable of damaging camera sensors". From what I gather, they use 1550nm IR lasers. Silicon is transparent at that wavelength, but not the metal layers or maybe the bayer matrix filters, so heat will be generated, yes. Absorption in water is high thus the retina of your eye might be save, but not the cornea and lens.
And even if the beams are eye-safe.. what if somebody looks at a car through some binoculars? Whoever approved this is clueless and belongs in prison IMHO. 

Bottom line. I think the US and other countries are crazy careless regarding laser safety regulations. I cannot fathom how it can be legal to direct those show lasers INTO the crowd... speechless. Good to know, I shall never attend a US-based laser-show.


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## Ruined (Aug 6, 2021)

This is mainly a mirrorless camera problem because of the length of time the sensor remains exposed - which is basically all the time you have the EVF or Live View active. DSLR sensor obviously can be at risk as well in Live View, but far lower risk via OVF since sensor is only exposed for a fraction of a second instead of continuously.

Sony likely made this statement to cement future warranty claim denials.


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## Joules (Aug 6, 2021)

A


Ruined said:


> This is mainly a mirrorless camera problem because of the length of time the sensor remains exposed - which is basically all the time you have the EVF or Live View active. DSLR sensor obviously can be at risk as well in Live View, but far lower risk via OVF since sensor is only exposed for a fraction of a second instead of continuously.
> 
> Sony likely made this statement to cement future warranty claim denials.


As was pointed out before, it is not a mirrorless issue. In a DSLR, the laser just gets into your eye instead of onto the sensor, which may actually be worse depending on the laser and how much you value your eyesight.


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 6, 2021)

In night clubs in Germany and on music festivals we had this planes of laser light that were moving through the crowds and some of them were vertical and therfore also hit the eyes for a short moment. However if the time is very short, that should have the same effect like a low energy. For example the stove can be hundreds of degrees hot, but if you only touch it for a 1/100 of a second, you might not burn your skin. I think for that reason lidar scanners are pulsed. 

In my university we had a laser that produced a pulse of 100,000,000,000,000 watts (14 zeros!), but only for 1/1,000,000,000,000 seconds. So it only used the same energy as a 100 Watt laser for one second. Of course 100 Watts is still a lot for a laser, but that example shows that short pulses can reduce the overall energy by a lot and still achieve a goal.


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## Ruined (Aug 6, 2021)

Joules said:


> As was pointed out before, it is not a mirrorless issue. In a DSLR, the laser just gets into your eye instead of onto the sensor, which may actually be worse depending on the laser and how much you value your eyesight.


Unless it's an illegal high powered laser you are not going to damage your eyesight from looking at a laser for a brief period of time. If it is too bright you will close your eye just like when you look at the sun, maybe see a floater for a couple of minutes and that will be the worst of it.

It is a mirrorless issue, because the sensor is exposed at all times you are using the camera unlike a DSLR via OVF. The mirrorless camera has no ability to "look away" because it's viewfinder cannot function without sensor being exposed at all times. Time is what does the damage, not just power alone. DSLR also susceptible in Live View, but with DSLR you can elect not to use Live View in an environment with lasers (like club etc). Or you can also risk your sensor with live view on the DSLR as another option- with mirrorless tho that's the *only* option.


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## Kit Chan (Aug 6, 2021)

Nemorino said:


> It is not a cis laser. CIS means compact image sensor which is damaged by a laser


I thought it meant Confederacy of Independent Systems. Those battle droids are operating way outside laser safety standards.


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## Skyscraperfan (Aug 7, 2021)

Haha, I think in the US they will only allow woke lasers.


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## randfee (Aug 7, 2021)

Ruined said:


> This is mainly a mirrorless camera problem because of the length of time the sensor remains exposed - which is basically all the time you have the EVF or Live View active. DSLR sensor obviously can be at risk as well in Live View, but far lower risk via OVF since sensor is only exposed for a fraction of a second instead of continuously.
> 
> Sony likely made this statement to cement future warranty claim denials.


hm, I don't accept that as an excuse ... that makes no sense when talking about LIDAR and show-Lasers. Both should be scanned around at high angular speeds and therefore the local cumulative energy/dose should remain small, no matter of exposure time of the sensor, since your eyes (!!!) are also "always open" like a mirrorless camera. Silicon has great heat conductance so if the energy is small enough, the laser could just continuously irradiate the sensor and it won't get damaged! As soon as the intensity is so high that heat damage occurs, the laser power is definitely much too high!!

Does anyone know if the sensor's readout electronics might actually get permanently damaged from overcurrent generated by photo-effect (absorption of laser in silicon). The failure pattern (total rows and columns failing) would suggest to me, that thermal damage has taken out the conducting electrodes and not the readout electronics (!) - but I'm no expert on failure patterns of the chips.


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## randfee (Aug 7, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> In night clubs in Germany and on music festivals we had this planes of laser light that were moving through the crowds and some of them were vertical and therfore also hit the eyes for a short moment. However if the time is very short, that should have the same effect like a low energy. For example the stove can be hundreds of degrees hot, but if you only touch it for a 1/100 of a second, you might not burn your skin. I think for that reason lidar scanners are pulsed.


those planes are usually created by diffractive optics or scanners and there is safety mechanisms that open the interlock circuit immediately. A passive element splitting or reshaping the beam is safer because it inherently lowers the intensity peaks. Also, the higher power lasers are not allowed to shine into the crowds, at least not here (germany, europe).


Skyscraperfan said:


> In my university we had a laser that produced a pulse of 100,000,000,000,000 watts (14 zeros!), but only for 1/1,000,000,000,000 seconds. So it only used the same energy as a 100 Watt laser for one second. Of course 100 Watts is still a lot for a laser, but that example shows that short pulses can reduce the overall energy by a lot and still achieve a goal.


yep... femtosecond lasers. I have several of those around. 
The show-lasers are definitely cw (continuous, not pulsed) so I'm still confused as to how these could potentially damage the silicon chip while being eye-safe. I doubt it VERY much, these lasers must be illegal then or have super large beam size which, together with a large entrance pupil (long focal length, large aperture) lens reaches the silicon chips' damage threshold. Again, I doubt the lasers are legal if this happens VERY much!

As for LIDAR. Many time of flight systems now use few nanosecond (or shorter) pulses... so it is possible that the damage thresholds for silicon are much lower... Still, I would think that no laser system is legal (considered eye-safe) in a developed country that could damage a camera chip this simply. Again, super large entrance pupil optical system obviously increases the intensity and for (ultra) short pulsed beam sources the damage threshold is much lower anyways, but I still see no window of legality for a laser killing ordinary camera setups while being declared officially eye safe.
Again... imagine somebody looking at a LIDAR based car through binoculars.... no way will cars be allowed to be equipped with lasers that could blind you in EITHER case, naked eye or binocs! ... only in a banana republic!


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## Kit Lens Jockey (Sep 7, 2021)

Is there any consensus about what classes or output wattages of lasers are dangerous for camera sensors? I'm going to be shooting in an area that will have some of those "holiday laser light" projectors in it. Those _seem_ to be limited to about 1mW of intensity per beam, so I would _think_ I'm ok. But I just don't want to fry the sensor on a $4000 camera by using it in the vicinity of a $40 holiday laser light gun.





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## randfee (Sep 8, 2021)

there can't be a power limit like this. If I take pulse lasers, 1mW means not much as this could mean 1mJ pulse energy at 1Hz.
Suffice to say, this type of laser is unlikely to be irradiating the your typical environment, but with lidar, it is not necessarily continuous and therefore at least I can't make such a statement.

IMHO, eye safety (taking into account that people use binoculars, telescopes etc) would mean, that one can't damage a typical (silicon sensor) camera. But looking at the evidence... some of the LIDAR manufacturers and MANY of the laser-show-beam source providers do not appear to be taking their power and intensity levels seriously.

I'm really interested to learn if lasers that kill silicon image sensors can physically be truly legal! I would have the means to test and find out everyday, but I'm not going to irradiate my own camera and we're just too busy for me to tell one of my students to go purchase some used cams off ebay and do a series of tests. If I ever decide to allocate some play time to this, I'll post the results here!
It would make for a nice paper that would probably get cited tons though... hm


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