Chameleon Eyes and Flash photography.

[Dankmeleon]

As a general rule of thumb i've tried not to use my flash on my chams as much as possible, and with distance, but i have no real knowledge i'm just being careful in everything i do cuz my cham is priceless to me. so i'm just wondering, and to take the topic even further....

recently saw a bunch of pictures of new born hatchlings with flash, thinking to myself first thing these guys see on eyes that are just opening is a flash....could it be that this could damage there eyes and slow them down for the rest of life however subtle and uncomparable?

i guess it would be beneficial none the less to remind everyone not to get too close with flash cameras, esp on new borns! even if it doesn't hurt them, why risk it when you can move back a couple feet, or just turn on some indirect lighting?

 

[mczoo]

Does any one know if flashes actually hurt chams or are they just stressful. I am justa newbie but i would think the sun in the middle east or madasgascar would be more bothersome than a flash. say you are hiding unde a leaf when the wind blows and wham good ole sol right in the eye. I have seen many a person with retinal damage from the sun but never from a flashbulb on a camera.
That being said in practice i agree with Dankmeleon and use distance and backlighting in all my animal shots (lol)

 

[wst0209a]

Must be talking about some of my pictures. I don't take most of m pic with a flash. The only ones that I did was the one when they were sleeping and on the hand. The other ones I used the light off of their cage.

 

[Dankmeleon]

nope i wasn't actually lol. and also my main concern is flash at close range, as flash is made to illuminate and entire scene, not permanently damage baby chams into semi decent hunters for the rest of their lives, i can't prove it but i certainly would suspect that to be probable, that chams can get retinal damage, but wat do i know, i just play the odds

 

[wst0209a]

Yeah, i try not to use the flash but like the one when they were sleeping I had to. I know that I get blinded for a moment by a flash close up, I'm sure it could mess up the cham's sight if it was pretty close up.

 

[Lost Lake Chameleons]

I don't think there is any permanent damage. Just think about when a flash goes off in your eyes..a few diminishing bars but it goes away. If it harmed babies, the human race would be blind by now with all the pictures taken of ugly babies.

Also, it is IMPOSSIBLE to take a macro shot w/o flash. well not impossible, but the picture would look grainy cheap.

 

[Dankmeleon]

what i'm trying to say is scale wise a human is a lot bigger so you're a lot further away to fit them head to toe in the shot, scale wise to get a money shot of a chameleon you have to be pretty close not to mention they are longer than they are tall

i'm not trying to cause mass panic i'm just putting the thought out there

 

[royden]

I'd agree with Josh. I think it's pretty harmless.

 

[Zilla005]

what i'm trying to say is scale wise a human is a lot bigger so you're a lot further away, scale wise to get a close shot of a chameleon you have to be pretty close

i'm not trying to cause mass panic i'm just putting the thought out there

Just use zoom. It works wonders, I can stand 5 feet away from the cham and still get a close up with flash. Yay!!! problem solved!

 

[nightcrawler]

Does any one know if flashes actually hurt chams or are they just stressful. I am justa newbie but i would think the sun in the middle east or madasgascar would be more bothersome than a flash. say you are hiding unde a leaf when the wind blows and wham good ole sol right in the eye. I have seen many a person with retinal damage from the sun but never from a flashbulb on a camera.
That being said in practice i agree with Dankmeleon and use distance and backlighting in all my animal shots (lol)

i dont agree with you. i think a flash is many time brighter then the sun.

and with people having damage from the sun...
people are exposed by the sun 239845723984 times more then they are being
exposed to a flash so that might be why.
if you expose a person to flash to the degree that they are out in the sun,
then i think they might have some damage.

 

[Dankmeleon]

not to mention a newborn who's sensitive retna has never seen a ray of light unfiltered by both the shell, all the liquids inside and their eye lid


people are entitled to their own opinions, i'm even tempted myself to agree with you that it probably won't cause anything, but who are we to take chams out of the wild and do rediculous things liek that, that we really don't know for sure

and like i said before a chameleon eye ball is one hundredth of the size of a human eye and no one stands five feet away that is rediculous

but i guess to each his own, i'm going to be a lil more careful about who i buy my chameleons from

 

[Eric Adrignola]

The intensity and duration of a flash are not enough to cause any damage.

 

[Dankmeleon]

The intensity and duration of a flash are not enough to cause any damage.

how do you know that?

 

[dodolah]

don't worry too much about the flash.
Unless your flash stays on for more than 2 seconds, i don't think it will pose any serious threat.

but, flash are generally frowned upon since it make your pictures looked flat.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

how do you know that?

Basic physics. For retina damage to occur, light must be focused on a portion of the retina for a certain duration (depending on the intensity of the light).

Camera flashes are too diffuse to to any damage to an eye - factor in the tiny fraction of a second they are actually "on", and it's even more harmless.

You need intense, focused light. Even the light from coherent laser at several milliwatts isn't going to damage your eye if you glance into the beam for several seconds.

 

[Dankmeleon]

yea but we are talking about the eyes of chameleons not ours, and we are talking about the eyes of newborns!!!!!!

i'm with you in your physics, but i don't think they are 100 percent sound, maybe like 99 percent

 

[ChrisnLisa]

Dear god-

There is not even words to describe how RIDICULOUS this is. They're from Madagascar. I'm pretty sure their eyes are meant to be able to handle the SUN...the millisecond duration of a flash, even as a newborn is nothing in comparison. Give me a break. If you have a theory, it's just that. Don't put it up for discussion if you can't handle criticism.

 

[kc502]

I've been scared of that to plus flashes can mess up color anyway so if you use a white piece of paper in front of the flash (hold it there) you get a lot better indoor pictures for anything your taking pictures of reay plus you dont have to worry about their eyes