Can camera sensor get damaged from the sun?
TCav wrote: For a silhouette, the subject must be backlit. At 12:30 pm, the Sun will be high in the sky, so you can't use it to backlight your subject.
If you did point your camera directly into the Sun, it would damage your camera, much like using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight onto a piece of paper would cause the paper to burn.
Given the time of day, I think it's unlikely that you'd be able to use direct sunlight to create the silhouette your client has requested, but there are other ways to do it that wouldn't endanger your camera.
good points 
If you are worried about the sun damaging the sensor in any way - stop worrying
... If it did damage the sensor, there would be no sunset / sunrise photos showing the great ball of "hot sun-light".Leaving a camera on the rear parcel shelf of the car, no cap on the camera lens, and the camera pointing upwards, there =may= be a remote possibility that the lens will focus the sun onto the shutter or sensor and cause some bleaching... but that is extremely remote and you are not silly enough to leave a camera there anyway
What is known to kill digital camera sensors is a flash from a laser beam inside a night club or stage performance. There are many descriptions of camera / phone damage from people who have been filming during say, a rock concert, where a laser has been bouncing off a rotating mirror ball in the roof, where that laser has swiped across the sensor and killed off a string of pixels
Hope this helps
Phil
Ozzie_Traveller wrote: G'day Ivy
If you are worried about the sun damaging the sensor in any way - stop worrying
See www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/09/rental-...lar-eclipse-of-2017/
TCav wrote:
Ozzie_Traveller wrote: G'day Ivy
If you are worried about the sun damaging the sensor in any way - stop worrying
See www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/09/rental-...lar-eclipse-of-2017/
Thanks Tom - a very interesting article
I presume that those equipment failures stemmed from extended pointing / viewing directly into the sun, whilst my comment above is referring to us as photographers seeing a sunset / sunrise and doing the usual "point and shoot" operation. Certainly over the 20-or so yrs that I have been shooting digital, I have enjoyed dozens and dozens of beaut sunset/sunrise shoots without experiencing any damage to my superzoom / bridge cameras with their lovely long-zoom lenses
Phil
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