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21 hours ago, ronaldc said:

What do you mean ? It’s been tested LiDAR damages phones and camera sensors full stop. 

The light beam bouncing back is probably not as focused.

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On 7/13/2025 at 4:15 PM, jdlaing said:

I wouldn’t worry about cars. An iPhone or iPad uses LiDAR. 

But only at a fraction of the power. LIDAR for self-driving cars is quite another thing.

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12 hours ago, Derbyshire Man said:

It’s going to be a power issue? The power output from a phone/camera is potentially lower than the car’s. I read that the wavelength isn’t focussed by the human lens but is by glass. I’m not sure I understand that as laser light is collimated anyway. I do wonder about the long term impact of high power LIDAR from cars on eyes, not seen anything written. There’s certainly a strong LIDAR lobby group though. 

That is not quite correct The fluid in the human eye is opaque to the frequency. There is no harmful effect, unlike  for instance 750 nm lasers, that are limited in power by law to prevent eye damage. 

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IMHO the part of the eye that could be seriously affected by LIDAR if there would not be the limit of the maximum power and pulse duration or energy dose, respectively, that is currently implemented in safety regulations is the retina.

But it makes me nervous that the LIDAR can seriously damage a sensor of a camera, but is on the other hand allegedly safe to prevent damage of human eyes... 🤔

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3 hours ago, jaapv said:

That is not quite correct The fluid in the human eye is opaque to the frequency. There is no harmful effect, unlike  for instance 750 nm lasers, that are limited in power by law to prevent eye damage. 

Thanks Jaap, so it's not going to reach the retina? how about when there's a whole road full these things or one of them fails and the rapid scanning which is part of the safety fails and a laser stays pointed at the same spot. While I appreciate that different wavelength have very different transmission, eg HoYAG which has tiny transmission in water it still causes heating during that absorption in the 'opaque material' surely?

I take it then its the camera issue is combination of the power of the LIDAR, the fact that unlike the human eye a camera is just glass and air interfaces rather fluid tissue lens in the eye and also possibly that the damage has occurred with telephoto lenses.

It remains however very problematic when the roads fill up with LIDAR, the Volvo manual simply says it is the users responsibility not to use a camera to photograph the car as it may get damaged. That's obviously entirely unsustainable!

 

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Taking this to its ultimate consequence, it might well mean that the car owner is liable for  damage sustained by an unsuspecting photographer.

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Posted (edited)

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This topic perked my interest as I've seen a a few posts about sensor damage from LiDAR equipped cars like Volvos. This made do a little research and there is a company, Kase, that supposedly makes a filter to protect sensors from LiDAR damage. I'm not promoting them nor suggesting they work, I haven't tried it out yet. But I may get one or two to protect my equipment when I'm out on photo shoots. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4Y77621

Edit: Besides Kase, there's also two other companies I've found online that sell anti-laser filters: STC Optics and SZ Filters. Only issue I see is that I haven't seen a filter size smaller than 67mm which makes it a challenge to put on smaller diameter-sized lenses like on my Q3. 

Edited by leica_kh
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17 hours ago, jaapv said:

But only at a fraction of the power. LIDAR for self-driving cars is quite another thing.

Simple then. Don’t photograph self driving cars. 😃

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Only 82mm, they don't give a transmission spectrum and talk about Laser pointers and theatre shows. There is no mention of powerful 1550 nm lasers.

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14 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

Simple then. Don’t photograph self driving cars. 😃

They all look the same nowadays. How to spot a Volvo in the distance when concentrating on your photo?

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Posted (edited)

Could the UV-IR cutoff filters made for the Leica M8 series help with this or do they not filter the LiDAR wavelengths of IR enough? Of course they might give unwanted corner color cast, though you can fix that in post with Adobe Lightroom Flat Field correction and a flat field  image of a neutral white subject. You would probably want to profile the camera and lens with the filter too using Calibrite Color Checker Passport or SG system too.

Edited by sdk
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On 7/14/2025 at 11:53 AM, jaapv said:

That is not quite correct The fluid in the human eye is opaque to the frequency. There is no harmful effect, unlike  for instance 750 nm lasers, that are limited in power by law to prevent eye damage. 

Cannot see it doesn't mean it is safe. I canot see X-ray!

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That has totally  nothing to do with each other. Lead is opaque to X-rays which means they cannot harm you behind a lead screen. Eye fluid is opaque to 1550 nm light which means it cannot harm the retina. An umbrella is opaque to sunlight which means it cannot harm your exposed skin. All, obviously, dependent on the intensity of the radiation and the thickness and density of the opaque agent. 

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, jaapv said:

Which is aparrently safe  and if it should it reach dangerous levels due to malfunction it will be automatically disabled.

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/7795741/apple-warning-iphone-dangerous-laser-eyes-skin/

You want to trust that statement? Malfunction !   Oh Murphy!  If it malfunctions, I bet the first thing is the auto-disable!

Serioursly, when a light energy hits human eyes, it is either abosorbed by something or reflected out. If it is blocked by the eye lens from reaching retina, then it is likely mostly absorbed by the lens. I doubt the eye lens could reflect out the majority energy. Would it cause damage is up to the amount of intensity.

Edited by Einst_Stein
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