Possibly serious problem with my 40d, help!

MataЯ

Right, I came home today and my brother told me he was trying to take photos of the solar eclipse with my camera! All the pics were overexposed.

So what kind of damage would this cause and is there any way to assess it?

whyulittle

Eh, try and take a photo of something? Over-exposing on the sun wouldn't exactly be hard, doesn't mean camera is damaged.

5uspect

Well if he didn't use the camera right his pics are going to be over exposed.

If you're getting bad pixels now afterwards then the sensor is damaged but I doubt that would happen, that would require much more intense light like a laser.

Take a few shots of something dark and look for white burnt out pixels. If you haven't noticed anything and are just angry with your bro and are looking for an excuse to argue then forget about it.

Calina

Have you tried taking a photograph with it since? I will be blunt, if you dno'tknow what you're doing, the chances are anything shot at the sun will be overexposed.

So Before panicking, take a normal photograph of something and see how it looks. Check it's in trouble first.

MataЯ

Thanks for the quick replies.

Over-exposing on the sun wouldn't exactly be hard,

I will be blunt, if you dno't know what you're doing, the chances are anything shot at the sun will be overexposed.

Yeah but god knows what type of exposure I had set on the camera, my brother doesn't have a clue how to work it he just picked it up and started shooting, he could have been taking one second shots of it. / Just had a look there and they're only 1/8000 so not too bad.

I took a few photos to check it but I'm not really sure what I should look for, colours seem a bit washed out and the photos looks generally overexposed when I shoot outside, I need to underexpose -2/3 or maybe 1stop to make it look normal. But photos taken inside seem fine. No dead pixels.

5uspect wrote: »

If you haven't noticed anything and are just angry with your bro and are looking for an excuse to argue

Spastic.

City-Exile

MataЯ wrote: »

Spastic.

That's a terrible thing to call anyone!
I was going to offer you advice, but I've changed my mind now.

MataЯ

That was a stupid comment for 5uspect to make though.

Thanks for the half offer anyway.

Calina

MataЯ wrote: »

Yeah but god knows what type of exposure I had set on the camera, my brother doesn't have a clue how to work it he just picked it up and started shooting, he could have been taking one second shots of it. / Just had a look there and they're only 1/8000 so not too bad.

I took a few photos to check it but I'm not really sure what I should look for, colours seem a bit washed out and the photos looks generally overexposed when I shoot outside, I need to underexpose -2/3 or maybe 1stop to make it look normal. But photos taken inside seem fine. No dead pixels.

Okay, I'm going to make a couple of comments.

1) no one in my house goes near my camera without my permission. You have not set the boundaries clearly enough.

2) presumably your brother was looking straight through the camera to take the photographs so I hope his eyes are okay. It is not advised to do that.

3) Complaining about him is not going to change things.

4) shoot a photograph on fully automatic and see what comes out of it. I am of the opinion that you are probably too upset to set the settings correctly and be sure that what you are getting matches what you used to get.

If you are shooting on RAW it is my experience that the colours straight out of the 40D are marginally flat and need to be post processed slightly.

Fajitas!

MataЯ banned for 2 weeks for personal abuse.

5uspect

Sheesh, It was purely a tongue in cheek comment. The OP clearly posted in a reactionary way panicking that something was wrong with his camera.

I offered advise and made an observation about my opinion of the state of the OPs mood. It was not meant to inflame but at least let him see that he may be overreacting a bit.

I'm very protective of my camera and I would hate to see anyone mishandle it but the wording of the OP seemed to be a search for justification to tell his brother "I told you so".

I pity his poor brother...:(

Fajitas!

Don't worry about it