Do you turn off your camera when changing lenses?

The claim that the sensor is charged and attracts dust, may, on the surface, seem plausible.

A CCD is made up of tiny transistor junctions. In order for the small essentially point charges to have enough force to attract dust, the CCD would have to have a lot more electromotive force applied than the battery is capable of.

Further, the CCD is behind a filter that is non-conducting. There is virtually no possibility of an applied charge attracting anything other than idle speculation.

However, I do agree with melayyat regarding in-rush current, which is usually limited, but, having not seen the schematic, you never really know. Past that, there is a high probability of contact bounce when connecting the lens or card and the possibility of the contacts on the lens shorting the contacts on the camera body as it is rotated into place.

No one would attempt to disassemble a car engine with it running.

jeremyInMT said:

John4 said:

The manual says "Be sure the camera is off when removing or exchanging
lenses."

Why would anyone think they know better than this strong statement?

Click to expand...

did anyone even mention removing or exchanging lenses while the
camera was on?

Click to expand...

I believe it is the title of this thread....

JonGrif said:

The claim that the sensor is charged and attracts dust, may, on the
surface, seem plausible.

A CCD is made up of tiny transistor junctions. In order for the
small essentially point charges to have enough force to attract
dust, the CCD would have to have a lot more electromotive force
applied than the battery is capable of.

Further, the CCD is behind a filter that is non-conducting. There
is virtually no possibility of an applied charge attracting
anything other than idle speculation.

However, I do agree with melayyat regarding in-rush current, which
is usually limited, but, having not seen the schematic, you never
really know. Past that, there is a high probability of contact
bounce when connecting the lens or card and the possibility of the
contacts on the lens shorting the contacts on the camera body as it
is rotated into place.

No one would attempt to disassemble a car engine with it running.

Click to expand...

Thats not entirely true... I've seen various engine parts taken off and fiddled with while the engine was running, granted the entire engine was not disasembled... but who does that very often?

--



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jeremyInMT said:

John4 said:

The manual says "Be sure the camera is off when removing or exchanging
lenses."

Why would anyone think they know better than this strong statement?

Click to expand...

did anyone even mention removing or exchanging lenses while the
camera was on?

Click to expand...

I guess you are technically correct. The OP mentioned tuning the camera off, not that it was on. He mentioned changing lenses whereas the manual mentions "exchanging" lenses.

I didn't realise I was stirring up an old controversy, (about a charged ccd attracting dust) like it was a cloud of dust! I guess I should have read up on the subject more before making my statement but I guess I thought if Nicholas R. (copperhill), says it: http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/image/15473243 ("you probably know that the Nikon CCD is a fabulous dust magnet which needs to be cleaned regularly. I don't own a Canon, but the filter on the CMOS is of similar material and it too collects dust when the sensor is charged.") I can take it for a fact. Maybe it was a common belief when he wrote it, and now it has been proven false?

--

What's the benefit of NOT turning off your camera when you change lenses/cards?

I always leave the camera turned on when changing lenses and cards but as a safety precaution I perform this action underwater in my bathtub, so as to reduce the chance of airborn dust getting to the sensor.

JonGrif said:

No one would attempt to disassemble a car engine with it running.

Click to expand...

At first I thought it would be more like changing the air filter. But that's not a good analogy, either. It would be like replacing/unplugging a SENSOR. Ah, like changing lenses with the camera on, it may be technically feasible to do it with the car engine, but not recommended.

Tom Moerel said:

Personally with my D70 i never turn off the camera during a shoot.
Not even to change lenses or cards. I know Nikon advises
differently, but i never ever had a problem doing this.

Click to expand...

And because you have yet to burn to death in a refueling accident, do you keep the car running when pumping gas even though the sign on the pump says not to?

What is the exact thought process that takes place when you read that the camera should be turned off before changing cards or lenses, but you decide you dont feel like it?

Do you just say, I dont feel like taking the extra nanosecond to flip that switch, I think I will simply disregard that warning?

To me, it only seems prudent to shut the power off on a high tech device, before removing and or attaching items which are in the circuit.

I have accidently changed the lens a time or two with the power on without a problem, but I did not consciously decide I would always do that.

Take care, Ted
--
http://photobucket.com/albums/y260/tdkd13/

I've not been consistant. Changing CF cards however, ALWAYS turn off the camera. To me, that is much more prone to malfunction. I guess some people like to live dangerously.
dpc
http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/showgallery.php?ppuser=2233

Joseph Bradley said:

I always leave the camera turned on when changing lenses and cards
but as a safety precaution I perform this action underwater in my
bathtub, so as to reduce the chance of airborn dust getting to the
sensor.

Click to expand...

hey..... i don't quite understand what you mean by changing lenses underwater, you'd like to record a demonstration video with yours and put it on the forum...would be of great help! ;-)

--
-------------
Panther (I want my 18-70 DX back!)
D200 + 35-70mm 3.3-5.6 AI + 50mm 1.8D + 80-200mm 2.8DN + SB800 + Tripod

Personally, no, I don't. I do turn it off when taking out the memory card, or attaching or removing the flash.

The Lens has eletrical contacts just like the memory card and the flash do, I just assume that there's less current there. That's an assumption though.

I do know that I've changed lenses hundred of times with the camera on, without any problems.

Come on guys

Warnings are there for a reason. Like the one that says, "Warning, Smoking can cause lung cancer"

yet some people feel the need to disregard that and smoke anyway. Im sure the engineers at Nikon had a very good reason why they put that stern warning into every single camera body that its applied to. I dont know how many electrical engineers are out there reading this, but through the several circuits engineering classes Ive taken, i can tell you that, yes there are [many, and simple] ways of preventing power surges from the opening and closing parts of circuits, such as the removal of lenses/Memory cards.

Im sure the D5/70 series has adequate protection against these [small] surges of power, but any good engineer knows that safety systems sometimes fail, along with their backup systems.

When you leave your camera on to change lenses/mem cards, you ARE triggering some sort of protection mechanism on the camera, obvously it has been proven to work by our mistakes at forgetting to turn off the power, but perhaps one day it doesnt work?

its simple: Turn your camera off before altering its electrical contacts in any way, failure to do so IS putting your camera at higher risk of failure. Feel free to live dangerously if you dont have the 1/4 a second needed to flip the switch off....

-John

Lens change, CF change and battery change - I always turn the camera of for these.
Just in case...
Otherwise I keep the camera on for the entire shoot.
--
Marek

I'm a EE and that's what I was thinking.

The current may be low, but even small current in the wrong circuit can cause damage.

I'd guess that Nikon lenses are probably ok to change while the camera is on, but obviously Nikon can't speak for any of the 3rd party ones. And it would be a stupid day for them to be sitting in court, knowing they're going to have to pay some moron a grand or two because their manual didn't tell him to turn off the power when he put his Sigma lens on...

Quite frankly, I think the camera powers on and off so fast that I don't mind one bit. Every time I hit that switch, I'm impressed. Maybe it's because my last camera was so slow...

jabara572 said:

Im sure the D5/70 series has adequate protection against these
[small] surges of power, but any good engineer knows that safety
systems sometimes fail, along with their backup systems.

When you leave your camera on to change lenses/mem cards, you ARE
triggering some sort of protection mechanism on the camera,
obvously it has been proven to work by our mistakes at forgetting
to turn off the power, but perhaps one day it doesnt work?

Click to expand...

That is not true.

Take, for example, a light bulb connected to a 120 volt AC outlet. When power is switched on, the bulb lights and all is well. There is no short or excessive current flow because the bulb's filament provides enough resistance (or inductive reactance) to limit the current to a safe operating level.

Now, one day you switch it on and it blows out. There was a large flash of light and now the bulb has a piece of filament loose inside the glass envelope.

There was never any protection mechanism. The circuit only worked as long as the filament did not short. If there had been a current limiting device (protection mechanism) in the circuit, the filament would not have been blown apart by the huge in-rush current when the bulb failed.

Computer chips and memory chips do not have external current limiting devices inline. If you short one of them, they die extremely quickly just like the bulb did when it failed.

1. I never did with various film SLR's thru the years. No problems.
2. I never do with my D70. No problems.
3. I never do with my first D100 body. No problems.
4. I never do with my second D100 body. No problems.
5. I never do with my D200. No problems.

See the pattern?
--

Fit for release from a mental institution but banned from the 3-0-0-D forum since 6-2005.

JonGrif said:

Computer chips and memory chips do not have external current
limiting devices inline. If you short one of them, they die
extremely quickly just like the bulb did when it failed.

Click to expand...

ok, be that as it may, i have never seen a circuit diagram for the D5/70, but i HAVE seen electronic devices with protective circuits built into them, the one i can best remember is our built in house hybrid electric vehicle. The other EE was thinking the same, so obviously im not way off base with that thought.

Ive seen resistors completely vaporized by current short circuits, so im not taking any chances. I would like to see a circuit diagram if anyone can find one.

still. Disconnect things while your camera is on = possibly "blow up your lightbulb"

-J

"i don't quite understand what you mean by changing lenses underwater, you'd like to record a demonstration video with yours and put it on the forum...would be of great help!"

Dude! I'd be happy to do that, but I always immerse my video equipment in the bathtub as well, and for some strange reason I haven't been able to get it to work properly recently. ...or my D70, for that matter. Will send you that video after I get my video equipment back up and running tip top. I'm going to run it through my washer/dryer tomorrow and see if that helps. If not that, perhaps a good dry cleaner.

Regards.