camera safety

do camcorders/cameras need protection?

In general no but high powered lasers can damage a CCD/CMOS etc chips if you shine it directly at the lens....

Yes, they burn pixels, and you get black spots on the pictures. It's really annoying, avoid it.

Timelord said:

In general no but high powered lasers can damage a CCD/CMOS etc chips if you shine it directly at the lens....

Click to expand...

I would say: prevent shining a laser into the lens at all times. I don't know the exact damage treshold, but i've seen cameras with seriously trashed detectors from lasers well under 100 mW power.

Taking pictures of the beams or the spot on a wall is fine, but expect damage from a direct hit into the lens from any laser!

I would say: If in doubt, use your camera instead of your eyes. Cameras/camcorders can be replaces, eyes not. So before you hesitate to use your camera as a safety measure and won't use it, it's better to lose $$$ on the camcorder that can be replaced.
That was just as a side note for those who consider using a camera/TV as safety measure with lasers.

I'd recommend, for some "dangerous" shots, maybe get goggles for your cam...or something like the 12$ camera from DX.

ok, I was just wondering, I was going to use my dad's new hd camcorder, but that might be a little dangorous and he'd kill me. I'd never risk my eyes for something like that! I was actually going to make vids for WL and get free goggles. For safty I'd use an old digital camera, mod the screen so it can be far away, go to another room and close the door and fir the laser remotely, you can camcorder it using an ok camera/camcorder, and watch whats happening with your bad, modded one.

Not to undermine your safety thinking, but I would do this setup (remote firing) only with a multi-watt laser, and you wouldn't get WBs for that (do you anyways still get WBs for videos? I thought they changed that).
I'd opt for goggles in your case, except if you wouldn't know whether any other wavelengths might lurk about.

HD camcorder? Uh, no. I was thinking about this, as an example.
Also, if you use a camera, it might be more helpful to place your laser in an enclosure (again assuming it isn't multi-watt). Especially as you might get weary of running-out-of-the-room all the time and at some point just "stay in the room and just don't look", which is way worse.

I do covert video surveillance as well as video security, and I was tasked with finding a way past security at a certain business. One of the items I used was my DIY red. ;D One of the items I destroyed was a $400 camera. :-[ The laser heated the entire CCD up so much that there were less than 5% of the pixels still active, just a few bits in one corner.

If the camera gets a direct hit there WILL be damage. But I doubt that there would be damage if it were just looking at the spot on a target.

...wow.

How long was "exposure time" for the ccd?

The exposure was just a few minutes.
At least we agreed that I would try to avoid damaging anything, but wouldn't be responsible for any damage that was incurred.
I showed them that I could, with one partner, and one small bribe to an employee steal about $20,000 worth of computer equipment as well as TONS of personal info of employees as well as of customers in just one hit. It took me about 2 weeks of planning, and 18 minutes on site. Regular James Bond stuff ...ish