STICKY-STICKY!!!Eye or camera damage which is in most danger??

I nearly cooked my camera trying to get a shot of the 6 separated lines of my old argon by looking down into the oncoming beams (beams towards camera) and nearly stuck the lens right in the lines' path. Thankfully i reacted quick enough, and all is well

generally speaking though, i keep the lens cap on until I have the laser(s) on and am ready to take the shot- that way i know there will be no reflection or anything to blind my camera- or worse, me. You can never underestimate lasers! The second you get overconfident and don't pay attention to your surroundings is when something bad will happen- laser rolls of a table, hits a mirror, and so on. I wear my safety glasses until i know the "scene is safe", so to say.

And regardless, this thread SHOULD be stickies- there can never be too much safety!

Lest I did not make myself clear.. IF the laser show is properly set up you and your cameras ,in theory at least, should be safe-- & CSpaz is corrrect- its all about the zones
both safe and unsafe- and good old common sense--the overall safety record of legal shows is excellent- estimated 190 million people have seen a laser show or two and NO 'permenate blinding' has ever happened- for more info on lasershow safety see this thread:

Some vids about cams damaged by lasers here
Beware! Lasers Can Kill Your Camera?s Sensor | Photofocus

My tip is to remove lens cover after adjusting the laser on the tripod when taking pictures like this:

5mW of 532nm and 4mW of 635nm

As for the danger to camera's when filimg laser shows: If these are not shows with an audience but just to obtain footage of what the show looks like, there is a very simple precaution to protect your equipment:

Run the laser show one time with the lens cap on the camera, or in case of a compact camera just switch it off so the lens retracts and is protected. Confirm on a test run that your camera isn't directly struck by the laser on a test run, and film it after you are certain of this.

When filming a live show and capturing the audience it could be a good general tip to decrease aperture and increase iso als long as the results arent overly noisy. The damage to the sensor is usually thermal, so having a smaller aperture reduces chances of it, regardless of how sensitive you configure your sensor to be. It might get whited out on a direct hit, but the smaller your aperature, the smaller the chance of permanent danger to your sensor.

@Ben-- good advice for sure--

at LSO--(ILDA course)

HANDBOOK/MANUAL--
page 21

# 20)
"ChecK for bright-light-sensitive devices or materials. (includes Vid projectors and cams.... A 50 mW beam can permamently damage a DLP video projector. ...

(Case study: A laser system was set up to avoid 12 barco R18 projectors mounted on a moving truss. During the show the truss operator stopped the projectors sat the wrong height . All 12 perojectors -each one costing about $100,000.00 -were damaged when the effects started... Plus , they blocked the laser effects and thus ruined this part of the show.)

end quote

also the show company was sued(OR attemped suit) for the damage but it was found that they were not at fault.

hak