on 2/3/01 11:50 PM, Laurie Solomon at laurie@advancenet.net wrote:
> I concur with you Hersch but would add that the danger is not from the
> brightness of the light but from the ultraviolet light rays that the sun
> emits and which are not screened out all that much by one-way mirrors and
> pentaprisms.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Hersch Nitikman
> Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2001 11:17 PM
> To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> Subject: filmscanners: Re: looking at the Sun
>
>
> I'm sure others will chime in on this one, but I can't let that advice go
> unanswered. Just because the image in an SLR viewfinder is replected up
> through a pentaprism and a ground glass screen is no reason for
> complaisance about looking at the sun with such a camera. The efforts to
> make the screen view as bright as possible makes the light level in the
> eyepiece just about as dangerous as looking at the sun directly. True,
> there is some reduction, but in many cases, if not most, it is still bright
> enough to blind in a short time. Don't do it!
> Of course, a sunset may have the light attenuated enough by the atmosphere
> to make it safe. But, if it is uncomfortable to look with the unaided eye,
> don't gamble on looking through the viewfinder of an SLR.
>
> At 01:32 PM 02/03/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>> In <5.0.2.1.0.20010131154337.00a149f0@pop.freeserve.net>, Stuart wrote:
>>
>>> But,of course ,no-one would do so while looking through the viewfinder
> as
>>> this would be extremely detrimental to ones eyesight and if the shutter
>>> was released would it not burn the blind ??
>>>
>> I don't think this is true of SLR's, as the image is formed on the ground
>> glass screen and then the eye at the viewfinder looks at that image rather
>> than the sun itself. In a viewfinder camera this might be different, as
>> there is no ground glass screen; you look straight through the viewfinder
>> lens(es). Also the mirror in such a camera covers the shutter blind until
>> the last second, after which the blind moves very fast, I doubt if it would
>> be focused on the blind of film for long enough to have any effect.
>>
>> Brian Rumary, England
>>
>>
>
>
>
Although some would be filtered by UV filter on the lens....
-Berry
