What happened to the camera when the photographer shot the rocket at close range?

The close-up of the rocket launching, the photographer's lens became like this.

On March 4th, John Kraus, an American photographer, shared on his personal website the situation that his camera was "destroyed" after shooting a rocket at close range. There are not many opportunities to shoot rockets at close range. In order to shoot spectacular scenes, photographers still paid some costs.

John Kraus said that he used two remote-controlled Nikon D7000 cameras, which were designed to take completely different images from different angles. The camera and lens are packed in plastic food bags. At a relatively safe distance from the rocket, about 500 or 600 feet (about 150 to 180 meters), a D7000 is equipped with Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8, and the close-ups of the rocket engine and four solid rocket boosters are taken in an enlarged scale. The other camera is equipped with an 8 mm Rokinon fisheye lens. Two cameras were placed in the space launch complex 4 1 launch building to photograph the launch of Atlas V rocket.

Judging from the shooting results, it was sunny that day, and John Klaus took very good photos.

▲ Image from John Klaus Twitter screenshot

▲ Image from foreign media petapixel Twitter screenshot

However, according to John Klaus, the Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-60A solid rocket engine used in Atlas V rocket is driven by very acidic hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene fuel. NASA officials warned not to touch your face and wash your hands as soon as possible after handling equipment coated with solid rocket exhaust. After the shooting task was completed, one of John Krause's fisheye lenses was damaged. At first, we can see that the residue on the lens surface is a white powdery object. John Klaus guessed that the solid waste gas mixed with the water in the water cushion suppression system, and the generated substance adhered to the lens.

After returning home, John Klaus picked up a wet cloth to wipe off the powdery substance. He took a closer look and found that the lens had a serious corrosion reaction with solid waste gas particles. In other words, this lens can no longer be used. John said that the reason why ultraviolet filters are not used is that if glass filters are used, water vapor will easily appear, while cheap filters will have glare and other phenomena.

However, John Klaus said that because the shooting effect was good, he was not sad because of the lens damage.