Will the solar eclipse damage the iPad camera?

The light from the eclipse is no different then the light from the sun at any time. So no, it will not harm your camera.

It damages peoples eyes (a biological effect causing a medical condition named solar retinopathy) because with the sun partially obscured someone actually can stare at the sun. When you try to do that on a normal day, it hurts, and you look away. But on a normal day should you continue to stare at the sun, you’ll suffer the same damage as you would staring at an eclipse.

Bottom line is staring directly at the sun for a longish time may cause retinal damage. It’s just your normal reaction is to not do that but when the moon covers most of the sun, you don’t get the same painful reflex to look away when you should.

But your camera isn’t bothered by it under either situation as the incident light arriving from the sun is the same light either way. An eclipse does not produce any specific or unusual solar radiation of any kind. It’s just normal sunlight.

I would suggest that you pick up a pair of solar glasses to put in front of the lens. THe sun is bright and will be just a big bright blur if you try to shoot it too closely. ALthough with the zoom on an iPad you can't get too close.

But if you want to see a defined circle hold the glasses over the lens, really close as in touching the camera lens.

even if you dont' use them for the camera, you'll want them for yourself.

Really? Well then apparently you and I have read completely different NASA documents. Personally, I have taken direct shots of the sun with my iphone on clear days (to see how it compares to my DSLR with much greater control over f-stops and exposure) and it does no harm at all. So it cannot possible do so then if pointed at the clips either.

Yes, the sensor will bloom and the pictures are horrible without a filter, but harmful? No. You would need to hold the camera at the sun for a prolonged period of time to heat the lens or sensor enough to do damage.

This topic gets talked about about a lot in numerous main stream digital photography forums all the time - any smart phone digital camera made in the last decade is highly unlikely to be damaged by taking a direct snap shot of the sun - Will camera be damaged if it is pointed to direct sunlight?: Beginners Questions Forum: Digital Photography Review

Here's a good read: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/Photographing%20the%20Eclipse%2 0with%20your%20Smartphone.pdf

NASA begs to differ with you.

Nope, same doc. Here's the relevant quote:

"The argument for it not being safe is that some of the more recent smartphones use larger and faster lenses (f/1.7 to f/2.0) to get better resolution, and that can be a problem"

Also, you modified your position in your response. Your original comment simply said it won't harm it, but it CAN with extended exposure, so if someone did a video or time lapse of the entire 3 minutes they could potentially have a problem. That's what I'm referring to. I agree with you that a quick pic isn't going to do anything, but the statement needs to be qualified. My bad for not elaborating the first time.

True a prolonged exposure could harm the sensor chip and what kind of "use" was never clear in this thread (picture, video or whatever). But I do note that even NASA's doc does not say it will harm a smart phone camera, just that it might. And most of the camera and photography sites have been posting that is highly unlikely with any modern digital sensor and lens, even those on a smart phone or other compact digital camera. In the reduced incident sunlight from an eclipse, even video'ing the entire 2.6 minutes or so is not likely to harm any cell or smart phone camera.

Without a filter though, its going to be a useless video as it will just be total sensor bloom and saturation - not an actual picture of anything recognizable. And that applies for a snap shot, or video or anything really. Even mostly eclipsed it will be too much input for commercial digital camera sensors. If truly in the zone of total occlusion there will be only a small window of time when a basic iPhone picture will work.

To be honest my concern with the OP was the reference to "radiation damage" as many people are under the misconception that an eclipse fundamentally alters the very type of radiation from the sun. Which of course, it does not - it's still just good old sunlight, same as any other day. So as when photographing anything looking right at the sun, to get any sort of decent picture, video or still, you need either a very adaptable lens (which does not exist natively on any small, thin digital camera) or a polarizing filter of some kind to reduce the input to the sensor.

What I also consider is, well the iPad is not known for its zoom. ANd snapping a photo of the sun when the sun is a tiny dot in the photo likely wont' do any damage. If it did cameras woul be ruined on a daily basis. For those with better cameras, ones with zooms, then a solar filter would be a must, especially if the sun is taking up 80% of the screen.

Of course, as you said, anything even remotely zoomed in without a filter will just be a blown out mess.

For those lucky enough to be in totality, there are no filters needed, in fact, during totality glasses or filters will just give you a black screen.

Fingers crossed for cloudless skies and good weather

😢 Yeah, that will really suck if the day comes out with just an overcast of dark thunderstorm clouds. Makes those $6 glasses worthless. Luckily I already have a couple of good polarized filters for my DSLR.

It won't if you don't keep the Sun in exactly the same position for mor ethan, say, a minute. Absolutely no damage will arise if you point your iPad in the direction of teh Sun for, say, 10 seconds.

This is why you can safely shoot teh Sun with any current CCD / MOS camera out there. Unless you make a long-time shot (more than 2-3 minutes) with the aperture and shutter open and the Sun being in the same position, there won't be any problem.

How long should you wait between shots to allow the detectors to recover?

Thank you for this helpful information. For a very comprehensive posting, refer to Esquared's NASA link, below.