topic Re: preventing damage to 60D during sunset video in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

preventing damage to 60D during sunset video

Elliotcowand — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:55:38 GMT

My 60D's manual (p. 153) warns of damaging the camera if shooting the sun. Does that mean I can't shoot a movie of a sunset? Apparently in movie mode you can not disable the Live View display. Suggestions?

Re: preventing damage to 60D during sunset video

Skirball — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 14:56:58 GMT

Nobody is going to be able to tell you that you absolutely will not damage your camera. Canon will always take the safe road and quote the manual.

This is an extremely popular question on the forums, and most will adamantly tell you that you will damage your camera, yet there is surprisingly little data demonstrating this. Someone may post up the link to a very popular video of a camera being damaged by a laser show (which although tragic, is nothing like sun light). All that said, there is a possibility, and it would suck to be the 1/1,000,000 that actually damaged their camera.

I don't do video. Shot plenty of stills of the sun, never a problem. Personally, I wouldn’t be worried about video of a setting sun, so long as the sun was already on the horizon by the time I started filming. But nobody can guarantee that it won’t damage your camera. Sorry, caveat emptor.

Re: preventing damage to 60D during sunset video

fyigmo63 — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:09:56 GMT

I would say always use your better judgement when shooting sunsets, and that's pretty simple: If the sunset is too bright to your naked eye (or eyes with sunglasses) then it won't be worth beans as a photo anyway, so don't shoot it. IMO, any sunset that you can enjoy viewing with your own eyes won't damage a digital camera when you photograph it. That's my own opinion, though, and I'm sure opinions will vary.