Can long exposure damage the sensor: As soon as the weather warms a bit I want to try my hand at night time long exposures. My college photography instructor said that exposures over 5...

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

As soon as the weather warms a bit I want to try my hand at night time long exposures.
My college photography instructor said that exposures over 5 mins will damage the cameras sensor. He said to take multiple photos and stack them in Photoshop.
What are your opinions on this?
Thanks

Spider223

I have a security camera in my house (digital), that constantly monitors 24/7, for the last four years, and the videos and stills it takes appear to be as crisp and clear as the first ones it took. Just sayin...

treadwl Loc: South Florida

I regularly take exposures of 200 to 300 seconds using my Nikon D810. Nikon says this will not cause damage to my sensor. The risk of damage seems to be limited to getting some "hot" pixels but nothing more. I live in Florida but my long exposures are generally done in the evening or at night. i have no idea how or why you would do long exposures during the day. Even using my ND 10 stop filter, getting to 30 seconds is nearly impossible unless the day is quite gloomy.

chaman

My opinion is that your photography instructor does not know what he is talking about.

Robert Bailey Loc: Canada

Did he say how it would be damaged?
I've never heard of this- and I teach photography at a college.

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

It won't damage the sensor. However, in some cameras the sensor will heat up during long exposures and generate more noise than it would otherwise. Combining several shorter exposures can work around this, assuming the discontinuity won't affect the image (as it would in star trails, for example).

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Robert Bailey wrote:

Did he say how it would be damaged?
I've never heard of this- and I teach photography at a college.

We didn't get that far. I think he might be misinformed or maybe old technology. I couldn't find any information on the internet about this but I'll keep diggin'.

The only possible idea I had was electronic circuits can get hot after prolong use. It could be possible that heat could damage the sensor.

Just a theory. Anybody have a DSLR they don't want to test this theory?

Thank all for your help

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

steve DeMott wrote:

As soon as the weather warms a bit I want to try my hand at night time long exposures.
My college photography instructor said that exposures over 5 mins will damage the cameras sensor. He said to take multiple photos and stack them in Photoshop.
What are your opinions on this?
Thanks

I do believe your photography instructor is full of it!!

I have used DLSR's and Mirrorless cameras for decades of astrophotography and have yet to damage a camera. I've regularly shot 5-10 minute subs and on occasions 20 minute subs with no problems other than having to shoot lots of subs and corresponding Darks to control noise.

But your instructor is correct about shooting multiple subs then aligning and stacking them; greatly reduces noise in the final image. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improves as the sq.rt. of the number of subs, i.e.: align and stack a session of 49x60sec. and you'll get a 7x improvement in SNR.

You might wish to pose the same question in the Astronomy forum...

bwa

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

bwana wrote:

I do believe your photography instructor is full o... (show quote)

Thanks for the info

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Unless you are zoomed into the Sun in full daylight, no. Your sensor will not have a baked in image of the Sun.

N4646W

If you check out the Nikon tethering software, it will sense the camera overheating and shut the system down during long exposures. I don't know if it is the processor or the sensor it monitors or both. So, there may be some truth to this. Maybe more research into the subject?

Ron

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

N4646W wrote:

If you check out the Nikon tethering software, it will sense the camera overheating and shut the system down during long exposures. I don't know if it is the processor or the sensor it monitors or both. So, there may be some truth to this. Maybe more research into the subject?

Ron

I just sent an email to NikonUSA if prolong exposure will damage the sensor. We will have a definite answer soon.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Well, I'm guessing the information has to be wrong. Afterall, we shoot video with DSLR's. A lot of videos a lot longer than 5 minutes, all using the same sensor that you would be using for stills

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

Sure.
Aim it at the Sun for an hour.
Shoot it with lasers for an hour.
Otherwise, standard learning has me believe that if the picture came out right the light was right.

Rudolf Loc: Marietta, Georgia

Roswell Mill Falls, Sony a99II, 24-70mm lens, f/10, .4 sec @ ISO 50, Polarizer.

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