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Re:Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse by xsmasher on Saturday September 02, 2017 @06:32PM (#15158578)
Are you saying zooming in on the sun makes damage more likely?

Wouldn't zooming in spread the sun's energy across more of the sensor? Same energy, larger area = less intensity.

Re:Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse by grahn on Saturday September 02, 2017 @06:54PM (#15158670)
The irradiance is determined by the aperture, which is measured relative to the focal length. So with e.g. f/2 you get the same heating of a given area of the sensor regardless of the focal length (i.e. "zoom").

Put differently, longer lenses typically also have bigger absolute apertures, collecting incident light from a larger cross-section. This compensates for the fact that a given solid angle of incident light is spread over a larger area of the sensor.