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RED air transport, gamma radiation, and effect on sensor?

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sbroock

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There was a fascinating 4K presentation this past week in New York City, sponsored by the Digital Cinema Society and Abel Cinetech. The main focus was the Sony SXRD.

Rob Hummel, President of DALSA, was in attendance as one of the featured speakers, and mentioned something that I was previously unaware of: Transporting a CMOS digital censor by plane will expose it each time to high altitude, pixel-killing gamma radiation. Outside of constructing a huge lead casing, this can not be avoided.

Can anyone chime in with any thoughts or experiences with this issue?

Is a dead pixel here and there just par for the course?

Extremely curious, as I plan on taking my RED back and forth between the East and West Coasts.

-Scott
 
I don't see how this can be true. Digital still cameras have CMOS chips, and I've never heard of or experienced that problem.

I've flown with the Nikon D2X without any problems. I know there are a lot of other photographers that do the same with all sorts of cameras, we'd hear about this if it was a CMOS issue.
 
David Fairbanks said:
I don't see how this can be true. Digital still cameras have CMOS chips, and I've never heard of or experienced that problem.

I've flown with the Nikon D2X without any problems. I know there are a lot of other photographers that do the same with all sorts of cameras, we'd hear about this if it was a CMOS issue.
Click to expand...

I was equally as surprised by the statement.

The most I could find on-line was this thread.

http://www.cinematography.net/Pages DW/PixelStillStuck.htm

At one point, someone makes the observation that CCDs are more vulnerable than CMOS, but nothing really definitive.
 
I travel by air with my CMOS based Canon DSLR all the time. I've never had an issue. I don't know why Dalsa would suggest it be an issue when so many people travel by air with CMOS based DSLRs with no bother at all.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
I travel by air with my CMOS based Canon DSLR all the time. I've never had an issue. I don't know why Dalsa would suggest it be an issue when so many people travel by air with CMOS based DSLRs with no bother at all.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Thanks, Graeme.

I believe that the Digital Cinema Society is going to be posting a stream of the presentation in the near future.

I'll forward a link when it becomes available.

Best,
Scott
 
A few years ago, I did a movie in argentina, and we bringed all the equipment from spain. When I arrived there, the F900 had a dead pixel. Of course is a CCD, and not a CMOS, but sony said that the gamma radiaton may be the cause.
In other hand, I had many problems with a 20" HD monitor from sony because of the magnetic field of the earth... I was told that a monitor of this precision is designed for the "north" of the earth, if you use it then in the "south", you will have problems. In fact I was all day long degaussing that monitor...
 
Sounds like BS to me. Dalsa will deliver there camera by truck (beacuse its to big to do any other way) so it will aviod this. So don't buy a RED camera just beacuse its small dosen't mean you will be able to use it everyware. You'll get dead pixels..

Sounds like spin to me.
 
polispol said:
A few years ago, I did a movie in argentina, and we bringed all the equipment from spain. When I arrived there, the F900 had a dead pixel. Of course is a CCD, and not a CMOS, but sony said that the gamma radiaton may be the cause.
In other hand, I had many problems with a 20" HD monitor from sony because of the magnetic field of the earth... I was told that a monitor of this precision is designed for the "north" of the earth, if you use it then in the "south", you will have problems. In fact I was all day long degaussing that monitor...
Click to expand...

Now that sounds like Sony...:D
 
IMGentertainment said:
Sounds like BS to me. Dalsa will deliver there camera by truck (beacuse its to big to do any other way) so it will aviod this. So don't buy a RED camera just beacuse its small dosen't mean you will be able to use it everyware. You'll get dead pixels..

Sounds like spin to me.
Click to expand...

I don't think Rob was taking a dig at RED -- it was a an observation made in passing during the presentation on 4k generally.

He came across as a very intelligent guy with a ton of insight and industry experience.
 
sbroock said:
Can anyone chime in with any thoughts or experiences with this issue?

Is a dead pixel here and there just par for the course?

Extremely curious, as I plan on taking my RED back and forth between the East and West Coasts.

-Scott
Click to expand...

Hi Scott,

It does not happen very often but can be an issue!

Stephen
 
sbroock said:
I don't think Rob was taking a dig at RED -- it was a an observation made in passing during the presentation on 4k generally.

He came across as a very intelligent guy with a ton of insight and industry experience.
Click to expand...

Oh don't get me wrong. I think he is a very smart man. And I think he looks at RED as compatition in a market that had none when they started. That said I'm not saying he is not right. But just logic would state allot of people would be very pissed off at there DSLR's espically AP photogs, and fasion photogs they fly every where.
 
sbroock said:
Outside of constructing a huge lead casing, this can not be avoided.
-Scott
Click to expand...

I have to tell you that you don't need "huge lead casing" to begin with, even when you install CMOS on the satellite orbiting 30,000KM away from the Earth, there are much lighter materials used up there. Gamma bursts sometimes are very strong but there is not much difference in intensity of it between 10KM above the Earth or on the surface of the Earth a specially if you compare inside of the cabin with outside on the surface of the Earth.

Andrew
 
sbroock said:
There was a fascinating 4K presentation this past week in New York City, sponsored by the Digital Cinema Society and Abel Cinetech. The main focus was the Sony SXRD.

Rob Hummel, President of DALSA, was in attendance as one of the featured speakers, and mentioned something that I was previously unaware of: Transporting a CMOS digital censor by plane will expose it each time to high altitude, pixel-killing gamma radiation. Outside of constructing a huge lead casing, this can not be avoided.

Can anyone chime in with any thoughts or experiences with this issue?

Is a dead pixel here and there just par for the course?

Extremely curious, as I plan on taking my RED back and forth between the East and West Coasts.

-Scott
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that seems to be a kind of woodooeffect :rolleyes: I travelled a lot with 35mm Film and I allways tried to be aware of radiation with less or more success. But never had problem. Same to my Canon CMOS stuff. It is hard to believe, that somebody from the airport will steel some pixels out of my sensor :eek:
 
Andrew said:
Did you hear about Sun spots increased activity?
This thing can do a lot of damage but you have to be in rigtht time in the right place to get any damage.
And I don't think it will matter if you are on the surface or 30,000' up in the air, unless your life depends of it:-)
Click to expand...

If you are 30,000' from the surface of the sun, dead pixels are your last concern. :D
 
radiation and sensor damage

radiation and sensor damage

I've seen this discussion crop up several times in forums over the years but I've never seen a definitive answer. A few people claimed their betacams had new dead pixels after air travel, but hundreds of thousands of people travel with consumer cameras and camcorders, and the smaller pixels on those sensors should logically be more sensitive to radiation- yet I have never heard of it happening to those type of cameras. Ok, some people might not notice, but I'm sure I would.

It is true that you CAN get radiation damage to sensors and ICs generally, with long enough exposure to high enough energy radiation: satellites normally use "rad-hard" processors for this reason, for example, but most of those are "soft" errors- a momentary glitch from charge deposited by radiation, fixed by a reset- rather than hard errors caused by some damage to gate oxide layer.
 
This is Bullshit plain and simple. The earths magnetic field is what protects us from the majority of Gamma and X-ray radiation and it extends thousands of miles into space.
300px-Magnetosphere_rendition.jpg

There is no way that 5 miles in the air adds any significant risk factor for exposure to cosmic radiation. Even the Apollo moon astronouts were safely inside the earths magnetic field!
 
Even though the average background radiation is higher at 30,000 feet than at sea level this isn't likely to be a problem. It's bursts of very high energy radiation that's the danger, I think these correspond to periods of high sun spot activity. Also more and more parts in aircraft are being made from composites rather than metals so there's less shielding.
As someone said before it's a matter of the camera being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the risk would have to be very low. Best suggestion, use a metal flight case rather than a plastic one, perhaps a metal cap to plug the hole in front of the sensor would be an additional precaution.
 
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