[D1N0]

Man says CES lidar?s laser was so powerful it wrecked his $1,998 camera | Ars Technica

On Pentax (probably) only in live view but still.

[Bob 256]

Very interesting! LIDAR uses extremely short bursts of quite high energy so it's possible. It could be related to a situation where the camera was tripod mounted and received multiple hits in exactly the same sensor location over time whereas the human eye is constantly moving slight amounts, which spreads those hits out (at the retina) so as not to incur damage, but in any case, the reason the damage happened would be nice to know. It's something worth knowing for photographers using digital cameras.

It's also possible this is just a bad burn and might fix itself given enough time and sensor exposure to more light but it doesn't sound too good.

[photoptimist]

The images article show the effects of at least two burn marks with different intensities. This type of damage also happens at laser light shows.

Bob 256 is probably right at this was caused by tripod use and the open shutter of MILC camera.

The chance of damage would also depend on the lens. A 200/2.8 would focus 70X more laser light on the sensor than would a 24/2.8 even with both of them at f/2.8.

[Paul the Sunman]

Thanks for the warning!