Fly with your film camera (instead)

[Tadeyev]

This was referred to me by a member of another forum, Jaap (he is a member here too) and I could not resist (re)posting it;
Forgive me in advance if this has been covered already (moderators, just delete if needed!) but I suspect a lot of people never heard about this, despite that fact that
the issue has been covered a few years back already:

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/07/07/does-bringing-a-camera-onto-an-airplane-damage-its-sensor/

 

[IEDEI]

that's just silly!

 

[Godfrey]

Certainly a concern for people toting 50 to 100 thousand dollars worth of digital movie equipment around the globe on a daily basis. Completely irrelevant for still photographers.

Film is degraded by gamma rays too. ;-)

 

[FrozenInTime]

I'm sure there is a disclaimer in the M9 manual about pixel damage being more likely with air travel.

 

[dcsang]

Ooooo... gamma rays?
I should look into this and try to get myself up and flying as often as possible. I mean, with all those gamma rays I'm sure to turn into the "Incredible Hulk" - after all, it worked for Dr. Bruce Banner !!!

Tongue Firmly In Cheek,
Dave

 

[jtm6]

How Does NASA Get a Nikon D2Xs DSLR Ready to Go to Space?

Do you reuse the cameras after they come back from space? Do they even come back at all or are they jettisoned to reduce weight?

The cameras that come back are evaluated for damage. Depending on the condition the camera may fly again. The space environment (both inside the vehicle and on spacewalks) is tough on the electronic cameras. The radiation damages pixels on the sensor. Sometimes the damage is so great that the camera does not fly again.

My needs and what I subject my cameras to doesn't come close to NASA, but damage is apparently possible. I've heard similar stories about how human health can be affected. I'd be more concerned about that, and I don't think it is much of a concern. 😉

 

[Tadeyev]

It seems to really be a problem for digital; I thought it was a lot of hooey until I read more about it: google cmos cosmic damage (Thanks Jaap!).

Of course these rays are all over the place; they are not a problem for most electronics, or even people for that matter. But I never realised that they do seem to charge part of the sensors up, causing these types of problems to exacerbate since the thinner atmosphere allows them more free rein.

I would not so lightly discount it as a non-issue for still photographers, who get stuck having to remap or replace sensors because of it. A pixel here or there is not gonna be an issue; but if you travel a lot with your camera, it very well could become a bigger problem.

Anyway, for the time being, I will stick with my frozen film reserves and save my pennies for a MM or M…Eventually.

 

[Godfrey]

The practical reality is that none of this stuff is of any concern whatsoever. I've carried digital cameras on extended flying trips since 2002 and have seen no noticeable image degradation as a result of it.

With a 5 to 24 Mpixel sensor, you'd have to have damage to at least 3-5% of the photosites, clumped together, for it to actually become a problem ... As example, that's 150,000 pixels dead or damaged on a 5Mpixel sensor.

My ancient E-1 (made in 2003, 5Mpixel sensor), that's flown with me on several trips across the USA, to Japan, and to Europe, when I examine the raw files with a raw converter that does not do automatic hot pixel substitution (dcraw), shows about 2000 damaged pixels at elevated ISO settings and extended capture times. In normal use, files processed with Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom ... You don't see *any* of them.

It's simply not a problem with a still camera. It becomes a problem with ultra high end, ultra high resolution digital movie cameras because the output begins to show moving patterns of damage through the thousands of frames that make up a motion picture image, which is very difficult (expensive) to correct with image processing.

 

[Nikon Bob]

I dunno, it might be possible but I am skeptical. A trip I took this year required two 15 to 16 hour nonstop legs all well above 20,000 feet. The D300 came through it better than I did and no dead pixels in the camera. Quite a few dead pixels in my posterior though. For the average still digital shooter it should not be a concern.

Bob

 

[Tadeyev]

Hi Godfrey,
I believe you, it is just that some still shooters have complained of the problem after having flown…..Personally I have no clue about it since I only learned about the topic today ;-)

Could it be an (over) sensitivity specific to certain (still) sensor types besides film camera sensors? Or a result of over active imaginations…?

 

[Matus]

Well, in principle an ionization radiation could (and does!) cause (via large energy deposit or via dislocations in the structure of the material) cause harm to integrated circuits, but the truth is - very most of the radiation in a plane is cause by muons that actually deposit rather little energy (per length of their path in a material) - that is why they penetrate so deep - and even gamma rays do not deposit much. It would take alpha (or heavier) particles to deposit large amount of energy. Those few protons that are still there at this latitude can barely introduce relevant damage.

To put it in a different way - even common (= not developed to withstand large irradiation dose) can hold up much more than human beings. CCD or CMOS sensors are much less 'fine' structure-wise than an average CPU (and are often use to actually detect gamma radiation), so I see really no reason why these should be more sensitive than other types of integrated circuits (like the one in your smartphones or laptop)

 

[Tadeyev]

Being on the Earth is probably enough:

Influence of Terrestrial Cosmic Rays on the Reliability of CCD Image Sensors—Part 1: Experiments at Room Temperature
ABSTRACT

An aging effect in solid-state image sensors is studied: the generation of hard errors resulting in hot spots, warm pixels, or white pixels. These effects even occur in image sensors that are simply stored on the shelf. This paper describes experiments that are set up to prove that the main origin can be found with neutrons that create displacement damage in the silicon bulk. These neutrons are part of terrestrial cosmic rays. This statement is based on measurements done on devices that we stored on the shelf, that were flown around the world in airplanes, that were stored at high altitude, and that were stored in an underground laboratory. The creation of the hot spots is independent of technology, architecture, sensor type, or sensor vendor, and it is observed in charge-coupled devices as well as in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensors. In other words, it is a typical issue of the semiconductor base material: silicon! The paper is split up into two parts: this paper (part 1) describes the experiments done at room temperature, part 2 will concentrate on experiments done at higher temperatures.

 

[Matus]

As mentioned above - indeed neutrons are capable to produce dislocations in material (problem discovered with the first generation of nuclear power plants). Of course the flux of neutrons in nuclear reactor is HUGE.

Bellow is attached figure of integrated spectrum (with energy above 1 GeV) of cosmic rays for different particles as a function of altitude. What one can see is that the flux of muons remains rather constant, while the flux of protons and neutrons decreases exponentially (as expected). There is about factor 1000 more neutrons at altitude of 12.000 meters compared to sea level. It tells us that in airplane there are about 1000 neutrons per second per square meter. So an APSc DLSR sensor with a size 18x24mm will be hit once every few seconds by a neutron and so in total would be hit around 100.000 times for an oversea flight. Of course - most of these neutrons pass through the sensitive camera parts without any interaction.

The questions I can not answer is - what is the dose (per pixel or whatever) that a CCD or CMOS imaging sensor is capable to withstand before an failure can be observed.

Source for the figure: http://www.int.washington.edu/PHYS554/2011/chapter9_11.pdf

 

[literiter]

Simply owning a digital camera will eventually cause pixel failure.

 

[Richard G]

A mechanical film camera can be used for shots around take off and landing where the rules prevent switching on 'electronic devices.' Since those gamma rays are potentially shortening your life it is best to get those shots while you can.

 

[x-ray]

Sounds like someone at Kodak trying to keep their job.

I worked for Oak Ridge national Lab in the 70 and while we didn't have digital cameras we had plenty of instrumentation full of IC's in very high radiation areas like the linear accelerator and cyclotron vault. the big problem then was not the effect of high energy and high levels of radiation on the instruments but rather the discoloration and darkening of optics. Optics will in short order turn black when exposed to high levels of radiation. The exception to this are optics made of non browning glass.

A couple of years ago I did a magazine shoot at the spallation neutron source in Oak Ridge. This accelerator has the highest energy source of neutrons in the world. Digital video cameras were scattered about the vault to monitor the system as well as a few hundred thousand if not million IC's in other systems.

 

[clifton]

I'm sure there is a disclaimer in the M9 manual about pixel damage being more likely with air travel.

Yes I agree with you, this is exactly one and only which I was looking for...