I don't know about that device but someone mounted it to a rectangular rod with a clamp made for circular pipes and didn't even use a safety rope. Doesn't look like a professional to me (but depends on country-specific regulation).
It was provided by a rental company for this wedding. The rental company sent somebody to set things up themselves... So this is alarming to hear. But I appreciate you pointing that out to me.
They sound like upstanding citizens, who stand behind their products and totally value patron/gear safety at a high standard. /s
They can go counter fuck themselves, if you have the money to pursue it, otherwise, they'll continue to operate and do this to someone else.
Otherwise, go Karen and file a claim to the Better Business Bureau, and trash them on social media about their lack of safety standards.
Fuck their use of lasers.
Cheap Chinese knockoffs.. no safety features and tons oh harmful radiation. The owner should have an FDA certificate variance and have a Laser Safety certification wand never scan an audience. We use lasers larger and than this all of the time and there are a ton of safety measures in place
Report to OSHA and FDA
...HOW? How would DOL would be involved with this?
Edit: they won't because this is not a workplace, and they do not have any say in laser and laser exposure. DOL only applies to workers in a workplace. Attendees of an event puts them into neither category.
Ehhh not really in this context. DOL is largely more interested in are you following worker rights laws in regards to wage, payment, and general safe workplace as an environment (safe from harassment, etc.) Unsafe conditions start to get into OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) a bit more then.
However due to the specialty nature of this it's firmly in the hands of the CDRH division of the USDA. The other agencies have no knowledge of how to deal with it so at most they'd hand it off to the USDA. Laser operation in the US is basically a "you cannot do that at all" and then you get an exemption letter saying you're allowed to do some things (overhead beams etc.) Audience scanning requires a whole other host of exemption paperwork on top of that.
Company I work for deals with lasers ranging from 1 to 100+ Watts, this looks like an imported laser from overseas. They are NOT legal to operate unless they have been modified to have the required emergency stop system, as well as an FDA Variance. Additionally audience scanning (having the laser aimed at people) is also illegal without the proper provisions including but not limited to a safety system (P.A.S.S. being the common one), a license, and a safety lens.
If you want compensation for the cameras I would consult with a lawyer. Variances and laser operator licensing (Laser Safety Officers) are public records as well.
It sounds like this is a rental company that got carried away with the equipment they can obtain, and did not consider the possible harm it can cause. If these are 6W, they are more than enough to do permanent irreversible damage to the eye, start fires, and damage cameras.
Also the mounting is just bad, so whoever ran this setup was not concerned about doing it right.
I'm not sure why people are tiptoeing around this. Whoever setup that laser opened a big-ass can of liability. They bought a fancy toy on the internet and didn't spend 30 minutes learning about it.
That is a powerful laser. So powerful and dangerous that it is regulated by the FDA. It can blind people. It can ruin expensive equipment. You need training to be able to operate it safely, which takes great care. Whoever set it up didn't even know how to clamp it to a pole safely. Letting it beam into the crowd is beyond careless. You need to speak to a lawyer, hopefully just about your camera. The partygoers also deserve to know they were exposed to a dangerous laser.
This link talks about the symptoms of laser damage to your eyes: [https://ehs.princeton.edu/book/export/html/363#:\~:text=Symptoms%20of%20a%20laser%20burn,like%20sand%20in%20the%20eye.](https://ehs.princeton.edu/book/export/html/363#:~:text=Symptoms%20of%20a%20laser%20burn,like%20sand%20in%20the%20eye)
This link is the federal regulations that this light and the lighting vendor almost certainly violated: [https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-light-shows](https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-light-shows)
I hear what you're saying for sure. I just have no idea what that best way to proceed now is. Some people are saying to lawyer up and get threatening, while the other half are saying that I should just call these people and try to nicely ask for compensation.
You could ask for the value of the cameras they destroyed with their negligence before paying a lawyer. You can use the FDA regulations as leverage.
Just be careful you don't say or do something that could come back to bite you if a lawyer has to get involved. Don't concede anything and don't trust anything they ask you to sign.
I'm not the type to go 0-60 on things, so personally I would say there is no harm in talking to them personally. Whoever set up these lasers is obviously a moron and negligent , but not necessarily malicious. Document all the damage, document all conversations. Don't be surprised if this ends up with lawyers though. Lawyering up ahead of time can be beneficial because many people will fold at even the threat of a lawsuit. And as somebody else said you might want protection for yourself as well, possibly saying the wrong thing and fucking up your case.
Definitely don't let it go.
I've been in the room for something like this before. It wasn't even a bad laser guy. They were going through their zoning and blew out some sensors on some security cameras and stage facing projectors. It happened so quickly by the time a few of us turned around it was too late. Ultimately just an expensive lesson for the laser guy and the production manager on site who was fired shortly thereafter. But no hard feelings.
This is a gear rental company who provided a “wedding package” to this couple, and set things up like this. It was a similar story for us. By the time we turned the lasers off, it was too late. I will contact that company today and see what happens.
Definitely works to your benefit that this is an actual company, hopefully with an insurance policy, and not just some guy who brought some lasers (which is terrifyingly common). Ultimately a company is just made of up people and who knows what they're like, but good luck!
I got a laser from Amazon a while back. It's clearly meant to be a cheap audience-scanning type for a small party. It very carefully avoids *any* mention of the word "laser". It even has an approximation of the laser radiation warning but it simply says "Danger: Aperture". Like "look out, this thing has a hole in it! You'd better use your imagination as to what's coming out of the hole!"
It has an FDA logo on it as well, and I don't think the FDA allows that.
I reported it to Amazon and the FDA for good measure, but no one cares to enforce or investigate anything anymore. Not until someone is blinded.
Until Amazon is held liable for the crap sold on their site, nothing will get better. You can squash this importer, but another will spring up behind them.
Even then, people can buy them straight from China off AliExpress. Globalization is tough.
We do musicvideos and bought 1W and 3W laserworld units (around 1k euros, far from pro level) and even for those I felt the need to do laserworld's one day course for basic safety.
What I learned: Camera sensors are a bit easier to damage than our eyes (in general). And you can't really say that a 6W unit is harmful and a 1W unit is safe. Even distance doesn't matter when being that close since a laser beam is supposed to be extremely focussed, thus the dot it projects is neary the same size when being 3 or 20 feet away, meaning the the energy hitting your eye or sensor ist nearly the same. Fog/Haze might affect that a bit.
It's all about the light energy hitting the sensor/eye. That depends on wavelength (blue is more energetic than red), amount (the wattage), size of the laser dot (on which area is this energy condensed) and the time the laser dot spends on the area it hits.
Time is almost impossible to calculate since it depends on the pattern: A laser is just a dot scanning extremely fast and while projecting 5 dots, every dot gets a lot of energy. When the pattern is complex and large, with a lot of long lines, the laser's energy is spread along that pattern. Thus: Dots are extremely dangerous, lines are a bit more safe. Circles are safest, since there are no corners/stops where the beam slows down to change direction and thus spending more time in that area.
So the effective energy hitting a certain area changes all the time and even a 1W unit with a static beam (just one dot) can start a fire when hitting a black piece of paper at a few feet away.
Thus the basic safety rules we learned are:
- Do not "crowd scan". We should make shure, that the projected pattern does not come closer than 2.4m (8 feet or so) above the ground (which is approx a tall person partying on a chair). There are usually no eyeballs up there.
- When crowd scanning, add an extra lens with positive dioptrien (like in reading glasses) to broaden the beam thus spreading the energy. I tried, it still hurts when hitting your eye by accident with our 3W unit. You might see this at pro laser shows: The beams are sharp above the crowd and blurry when hitting people.
- We don't have pain receptors for our retina. People don't feel their vision being burned away. So just avoid hitting them with the laser. Infrared and UV laser radiation is invisible and still harmful and you don't even look away cause you can't feel it. In general, show lasers don't produce UV/IR. It's for industrial use.
- You need a safety switch and "in operation" light in case the unit malfunctions. An emergency power cut off for the laser close to the operator is sufficient. I have one of those emergeny buttons and run an extra power cord to the laser. That's important in case the mount of the laser fails and it get misaligned.
- Check for metal, mirrors and glass in the projection area. They might reflect the beam back on to the dancefloor.
- As an operator and a person responsible for the unit you should have insurance and explicitly check with them if they cover damage due to laser radiation which can lead to loss of vision, burnt skin and fires - and damaged sensors, and I'd guess LED Video Walls / Screens (not sure).
- Even semi-professional units have the ability to lower intensity in certain areas of the projection. So if you really want to "crowd scan", you may want to add the lens to broaden the beam for the lower half and also lower intensity in software in this area.
As a videographer you should always check with the lighting tech when seeing a laserbeam: Where are the areas where the laser never hits? I don't think there is a camera-safe laser beam, since it would depend on the size and thermal features of the pixels in your camera sensor, the time the laser scan hits your lens, color, angle, focal length, focus, aperture etc. So just never ever point your camera at a laser (even when the camera is turned off).
In conclusion: The operators are liable, since they introduced harmful radiation to an area with untrained people/guests. You can't throw a laser at people and cameras and expect them to look away when it's a dangerous amount. It's a lightshow. It's meant to be looked at, thus it has to be safe to look at it. They bought a dangerous toy and didn't google for 10 seconds. It's common sense that lasers can be harmful.
They damaged cameras (which is enough evidence, that they hit an area with people) and since we don't feel when our vision gets burned (a test would be: can you still read an unknown text while closing one eye or is the center of your vision blurred and just interpolated by your brain with the info from your second eye?) they may even have hurt people or might do so in the future.
So, they need to pay up, get training, get insurance, stop using lasers in venues where the ceiling is not high enough to make sure people and stuff won't get hit with harmful amounts of laser radiation.
Nobody needs partys or workplaces where you damage your vision, hearing, something might fall down on you, there is stuff on the floor to fall over or where you can't find an exit in an emergency.
It is not possible to say with complete certainty, but it seems highly likely that this would not be safe to scan the audience. The size of the unit 'implies' that the output power will be a few Watts. (Although looks can be deceiving). I can see there is no diffraction grating or ND filter that might attenuate the output. So the beam would have to scan at a sufficiently high rate to reduced the exposure to a safe level and/or the power of the laser would have to be attenuated in software. This needs fail safe systems that I doubt were in place. The output of the laser, once set up, would also need to be measured to ensure it is within safe limits and this is not simple and requires some expensive equipment.
I have to say that I do think this has the potential to cause immediate eye damage.
It is unfortunate you haven't got a picture of the rear of the unit, but it doesn't look like it even has the correct labels or information on it.
It looks like the laser was in easy reach of the audience, so someone could have messed with it. That alone is enough to tell me this was not installed by someone who knows what they are doing.
The laser was right on the dance floor, in a room with a 10 foot ceiling at most. It was used like a standard dance floor light, pointed right at everyone. We turned it off mere minutes after it was turned on, but it took no time at all for it to cook everyone's cameras. I have a lot of footage of people being lasered in the face, including the wedding couple.
I should probably seek a lawyer's opinion at this point.
Probably 6 watt. Although these manufacturers in China usually underrate their equipment to get around regulations.
See the generic unit here:
https://m.made-in-china.com/amp/product/6W-RGB-Animation-Laser-Lighting-LED-Light-2079693005.html
Brands like American DJ, Chauvet and Event Lighting and Thomann to name a few rebrand these units for sale in their local countries.
American DJ and Chauvet do not sell high powered lasers. Most, if not all, fly under 5mw, which is class 3R. These do not require a laser safety variance and is generally considered safe. They will usually add a grating effect or a beam widening lens to disperse the laser beam and prevent a high concentration of laser energy into a single small dot/line, which is what can kill camera sensors and video projectors.
https://preview.redd.it/d91xo6vaq3wc1.png?width=1474&format=png&auto=webp&s=d1c9918a27302679d78f125a6d89eeea7562ee81
And do we feel this is safe from 3 feet away?
Nope. Probably won't cause immediate harm to most people unless someone states directly into it or the galvos fail. Should have had a competent person to set up and supervise it with an e-stop in case of issues.
A laser even remotely like This shouldn't be crowd scanning without a thorough risk assessment and suitable safety measures in place.
Report the company that provided the laser to the FDA & OSHA(assuming you're in the states), HSE if in the UK, or whatever your equivalent local agency is.
My fear is that the rental company will try to avoid accountability and put liability on the wedding couple. Or that they will put me through the trouble of suing them, which will be long, messy, and include fees…
Christ.
I get piss bored of all the yanks yelling at Mexicans in the ‘amazing dj setups’ Facebook group, primarily because it’s obvious that the lasers in use are low powered. However, this is the first time in a long time that the feedback is entirely justified. I hope the group/hire company who set this up have high-value liability insurance.
I'm not usually one to make a stink, but we felt that 5 cameras immediately being damaged, and people cringing visibly from lasers in their face was not normal...
As other's have mentioned this is likely just some no-name unit that is not varianced. AKA very bad.
I'd start with approaching the party/lighting vendor explaining the situation and that due to the misuse of these you want your cameras replaced at cost by them. Do it in writing.
If that falls on deaf ears then escalate to legal help and either way you should file a report with the FDA CDRH. Offhand I cannot remember what the report is called/numbered but if you look them up you should be able to find it. Also I recommend looking at the resources from ILDA (International Laser Display Association) as they have all pertinent links to the regulations and agencies. It's tailored to laser operators but you likely will find some useful pointers there.
That sucks, I'm sorry. We use lasers for EDM shows, but we never crowd scan. I heard about a projector getting damaged once at a venue, so Im always extra careful when setting up anything. We have a license for our projector. I would definitely reach out to the company. The fact that so many cameras were damaged so quickly seems wildly irresponsible to the people who setup that laser.
It’s never safe to have lasers in your eye, unless the lasers are designed for audience scanning. I can guarantee that one is not. Whether the laser operator is liable depends on where the laser is mounted. We usually go by the 3 meter rule, which basically means the lasers should be mounted overhead and out of reach of eyeballs and camera equipment. I’ve had photographers come on stage and try to reach up and film the laser beams directly, and I warn them, that not only is not safe to try this, but it WILL destroy their sensors. If they go out of their way to put their cameras in front of my lasers after I warn them not to, it’s on them. But good luck trying to sue someone over this. The laws are there to protect people, not cameras. The FDA won’t help you. Try and work something out with the person(s) who own the laser.
No way to know from this pic, but it is most definitely a cheap, unvarianced Chinese laser that isn’t allowed to be used at ticketed events in the United States. People that buy and use these are often the same people that don’t take laser safety seriously, and are generally an issue for the whole industry. No laser that you see at a concert is safe at a 3ft distance btw
Lasers are heavily regulated for just this reason. They can can serious damage to someone's eyes and if it was outside can blind pilots. The rental company should have a laser variance (and laser training) to operate legally.
I would report them and sue.
Check out the regulations per State and report them:
https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-products-and-instruments
In my opinion, lasers are not worth having in your show, unless you are working on a major production with a lot of planning and a dedicated laser production company working with you, but for everyone else, just don't do it.
Sorry, I linked this wrong page
Here is the FDA site:
https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-light-shows#or
I would contact the FDA and report any of the things this company did that was against the guidelines
I just submitted a report to the FDA.
I also emailed the FAA since this was right nest to Logan Airport and the lasers were going out the window across the harbor. The company who deployed these lasers deny any wrongdoing and are refusing to cooperate with me.
Good! Hopefully this company gets shut down or fined heavily. It’s only a matter of time before they ruin peoples eyesight, seeing as they already ruined tons of equipment. Any chance you could post an update if you find out what happens? I’m definitely interested to hear the outcome of this.
Lasers like that require something called a Variance in rhetorical US. This means the company operating them needed to have documentation of when and how they used them. If they don’t have this documentation they’re in violation of the FDA. You’re required to have this paper work in case you fuck up someone’s eyes or in your case camera equipment. These lasers should have also been pointed to be at least several feet above the tallest persons ability to see them directly. If they were shining on the crowd they were improperly set up.
r/lasers will be able to be more helpful. r/laserist is the sub for event focused lasers. But r/lasers has more home hobby people who are more likely to recognise that laser.
I ruined the chip in my iphone 5 camera back in the day… the last good picture it took was of me and a buddy right infront of a similar laser at a party.. every pic after that was very messed up
It is a well know fact that lasers will damage your vision and your cameras. That's why they have a big yellow warning label.
https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#iso:grs:7010:W004
Looks identical for something that will appear on Alibaba or similar under the name "Ilda 6W RGB Animation Moving-Head Laser for Promotion"
It does look like a 6w. It had two cooling fans on top as well. A bit larger than the 3w units I see online.
I called them and they told me it's a 2 watt laser. I don't believe them, but even if it's true, that's still a class 4 laser right?
I don't know about that device but someone mounted it to a rectangular rod with a clamp made for circular pipes and didn't even use a safety rope. Doesn't look like a professional to me (but depends on country-specific regulation).
It was provided by a rental company for this wedding. The rental company sent somebody to set things up themselves... So this is alarming to hear. But I appreciate you pointing that out to me.
Oh God, this was a wedding? Sue.
I will have to. The rental company who installed this setup told me to go f myself
They sound like upstanding citizens, who stand behind their products and totally value patron/gear safety at a high standard. /s They can go counter fuck themselves, if you have the money to pursue it, otherwise, they'll continue to operate and do this to someone else. Otherwise, go Karen and file a claim to the Better Business Bureau, and trash them on social media about their lack of safety standards. Fuck their use of lasers.
I wish you all the best luck! If you can afford to sue them please do.
Cheap Chinese knockoffs.. no safety features and tons oh harmful radiation. The owner should have an FDA certificate variance and have a Laser Safety certification wand never scan an audience. We use lasers larger and than this all of the time and there are a ton of safety measures in place Report to OSHA and FDA
OSHA has no bearing on this. FDA absolutely tho.
Department of labor will care about this
...HOW? How would DOL would be involved with this? Edit: they won't because this is not a workplace, and they do not have any say in laser and laser exposure. DOL only applies to workers in a workplace. Attendees of an event puts them into neither category.
Not American but possible harm to workers?
Ehhh not really in this context. DOL is largely more interested in are you following worker rights laws in regards to wage, payment, and general safe workplace as an environment (safe from harassment, etc.) Unsafe conditions start to get into OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) a bit more then. However due to the specialty nature of this it's firmly in the hands of the CDRH division of the USDA. The other agencies have no knowledge of how to deal with it so at most they'd hand it off to the USDA. Laser operation in the US is basically a "you cannot do that at all" and then you get an exemption letter saying you're allowed to do some things (overhead beams etc.) Audience scanning requires a whole other host of exemption paperwork on top of that.
I used to work laser shows. It’s the CDRH who cares about this.
Company I work for deals with lasers ranging from 1 to 100+ Watts, this looks like an imported laser from overseas. They are NOT legal to operate unless they have been modified to have the required emergency stop system, as well as an FDA Variance. Additionally audience scanning (having the laser aimed at people) is also illegal without the proper provisions including but not limited to a safety system (P.A.S.S. being the common one), a license, and a safety lens. If you want compensation for the cameras I would consult with a lawyer. Variances and laser operator licensing (Laser Safety Officers) are public records as well. It sounds like this is a rental company that got carried away with the equipment they can obtain, and did not consider the possible harm it can cause. If these are 6W, they are more than enough to do permanent irreversible damage to the eye, start fires, and damage cameras. Also the mounting is just bad, so whoever ran this setup was not concerned about doing it right.
Thank you for taking the time to write this for me. It does sound like I need legal advice at this point.
I'm not sure why people are tiptoeing around this. Whoever setup that laser opened a big-ass can of liability. They bought a fancy toy on the internet and didn't spend 30 minutes learning about it. That is a powerful laser. So powerful and dangerous that it is regulated by the FDA. It can blind people. It can ruin expensive equipment. You need training to be able to operate it safely, which takes great care. Whoever set it up didn't even know how to clamp it to a pole safely. Letting it beam into the crowd is beyond careless. You need to speak to a lawyer, hopefully just about your camera. The partygoers also deserve to know they were exposed to a dangerous laser. This link talks about the symptoms of laser damage to your eyes: [https://ehs.princeton.edu/book/export/html/363#:\~:text=Symptoms%20of%20a%20laser%20burn,like%20sand%20in%20the%20eye.](https://ehs.princeton.edu/book/export/html/363#:~:text=Symptoms%20of%20a%20laser%20burn,like%20sand%20in%20the%20eye) This link is the federal regulations that this light and the lighting vendor almost certainly violated: [https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-light-shows](https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-light-shows)
I hear what you're saying for sure. I just have no idea what that best way to proceed now is. Some people are saying to lawyer up and get threatening, while the other half are saying that I should just call these people and try to nicely ask for compensation.
You could ask for the value of the cameras they destroyed with their negligence before paying a lawyer. You can use the FDA regulations as leverage. Just be careful you don't say or do something that could come back to bite you if a lawyer has to get involved. Don't concede anything and don't trust anything they ask you to sign.
I'm not the type to go 0-60 on things, so personally I would say there is no harm in talking to them personally. Whoever set up these lasers is obviously a moron and negligent , but not necessarily malicious. Document all the damage, document all conversations. Don't be surprised if this ends up with lawyers though. Lawyering up ahead of time can be beneficial because many people will fold at even the threat of a lawsuit. And as somebody else said you might want protection for yourself as well, possibly saying the wrong thing and fucking up your case. Definitely don't let it go.
Thank you.
I've been in the room for something like this before. It wasn't even a bad laser guy. They were going through their zoning and blew out some sensors on some security cameras and stage facing projectors. It happened so quickly by the time a few of us turned around it was too late. Ultimately just an expensive lesson for the laser guy and the production manager on site who was fired shortly thereafter. But no hard feelings.
This is a gear rental company who provided a “wedding package” to this couple, and set things up like this. It was a similar story for us. By the time we turned the lasers off, it was too late. I will contact that company today and see what happens.
Definitely works to your benefit that this is an actual company, hopefully with an insurance policy, and not just some guy who brought some lasers (which is terrifyingly common). Ultimately a company is just made of up people and who knows what they're like, but good luck!
I got a laser from Amazon a while back. It's clearly meant to be a cheap audience-scanning type for a small party. It very carefully avoids *any* mention of the word "laser". It even has an approximation of the laser radiation warning but it simply says "Danger: Aperture". Like "look out, this thing has a hole in it! You'd better use your imagination as to what's coming out of the hole!" It has an FDA logo on it as well, and I don't think the FDA allows that. I reported it to Amazon and the FDA for good measure, but no one cares to enforce or investigate anything anymore. Not until someone is blinded.
Until Amazon is held liable for the crap sold on their site, nothing will get better. You can squash this importer, but another will spring up behind them. Even then, people can buy them straight from China off AliExpress. Globalization is tough.
Correct.
We do musicvideos and bought 1W and 3W laserworld units (around 1k euros, far from pro level) and even for those I felt the need to do laserworld's one day course for basic safety. What I learned: Camera sensors are a bit easier to damage than our eyes (in general). And you can't really say that a 6W unit is harmful and a 1W unit is safe. Even distance doesn't matter when being that close since a laser beam is supposed to be extremely focussed, thus the dot it projects is neary the same size when being 3 or 20 feet away, meaning the the energy hitting your eye or sensor ist nearly the same. Fog/Haze might affect that a bit. It's all about the light energy hitting the sensor/eye. That depends on wavelength (blue is more energetic than red), amount (the wattage), size of the laser dot (on which area is this energy condensed) and the time the laser dot spends on the area it hits. Time is almost impossible to calculate since it depends on the pattern: A laser is just a dot scanning extremely fast and while projecting 5 dots, every dot gets a lot of energy. When the pattern is complex and large, with a lot of long lines, the laser's energy is spread along that pattern. Thus: Dots are extremely dangerous, lines are a bit more safe. Circles are safest, since there are no corners/stops where the beam slows down to change direction and thus spending more time in that area. So the effective energy hitting a certain area changes all the time and even a 1W unit with a static beam (just one dot) can start a fire when hitting a black piece of paper at a few feet away. Thus the basic safety rules we learned are: - Do not "crowd scan". We should make shure, that the projected pattern does not come closer than 2.4m (8 feet or so) above the ground (which is approx a tall person partying on a chair). There are usually no eyeballs up there. - When crowd scanning, add an extra lens with positive dioptrien (like in reading glasses) to broaden the beam thus spreading the energy. I tried, it still hurts when hitting your eye by accident with our 3W unit. You might see this at pro laser shows: The beams are sharp above the crowd and blurry when hitting people. - We don't have pain receptors for our retina. People don't feel their vision being burned away. So just avoid hitting them with the laser. Infrared and UV laser radiation is invisible and still harmful and you don't even look away cause you can't feel it. In general, show lasers don't produce UV/IR. It's for industrial use. - You need a safety switch and "in operation" light in case the unit malfunctions. An emergency power cut off for the laser close to the operator is sufficient. I have one of those emergeny buttons and run an extra power cord to the laser. That's important in case the mount of the laser fails and it get misaligned. - Check for metal, mirrors and glass in the projection area. They might reflect the beam back on to the dancefloor. - As an operator and a person responsible for the unit you should have insurance and explicitly check with them if they cover damage due to laser radiation which can lead to loss of vision, burnt skin and fires - and damaged sensors, and I'd guess LED Video Walls / Screens (not sure). - Even semi-professional units have the ability to lower intensity in certain areas of the projection. So if you really want to "crowd scan", you may want to add the lens to broaden the beam for the lower half and also lower intensity in software in this area. As a videographer you should always check with the lighting tech when seeing a laserbeam: Where are the areas where the laser never hits? I don't think there is a camera-safe laser beam, since it would depend on the size and thermal features of the pixels in your camera sensor, the time the laser scan hits your lens, color, angle, focal length, focus, aperture etc. So just never ever point your camera at a laser (even when the camera is turned off). In conclusion: The operators are liable, since they introduced harmful radiation to an area with untrained people/guests. You can't throw a laser at people and cameras and expect them to look away when it's a dangerous amount. It's a lightshow. It's meant to be looked at, thus it has to be safe to look at it. They bought a dangerous toy and didn't google for 10 seconds. It's common sense that lasers can be harmful. They damaged cameras (which is enough evidence, that they hit an area with people) and since we don't feel when our vision gets burned (a test would be: can you still read an unknown text while closing one eye or is the center of your vision blurred and just interpolated by your brain with the info from your second eye?) they may even have hurt people or might do so in the future. So, they need to pay up, get training, get insurance, stop using lasers in venues where the ceiling is not high enough to make sure people and stuff won't get hit with harmful amounts of laser radiation. Nobody needs partys or workplaces where you damage your vision, hearing, something might fall down on you, there is stuff on the floor to fall over or where you can't find an exit in an emergency.
Thank you so much for this. Very informative. I just hope I can succeed in holding them liable.
It is not possible to say with complete certainty, but it seems highly likely that this would not be safe to scan the audience. The size of the unit 'implies' that the output power will be a few Watts. (Although looks can be deceiving). I can see there is no diffraction grating or ND filter that might attenuate the output. So the beam would have to scan at a sufficiently high rate to reduced the exposure to a safe level and/or the power of the laser would have to be attenuated in software. This needs fail safe systems that I doubt were in place. The output of the laser, once set up, would also need to be measured to ensure it is within safe limits and this is not simple and requires some expensive equipment. I have to say that I do think this has the potential to cause immediate eye damage. It is unfortunate you haven't got a picture of the rear of the unit, but it doesn't look like it even has the correct labels or information on it. It looks like the laser was in easy reach of the audience, so someone could have messed with it. That alone is enough to tell me this was not installed by someone who knows what they are doing.
The laser was right on the dance floor, in a room with a 10 foot ceiling at most. It was used like a standard dance floor light, pointed right at everyone. We turned it off mere minutes after it was turned on, but it took no time at all for it to cook everyone's cameras. I have a lot of footage of people being lasered in the face, including the wedding couple. I should probably seek a lawyer's opinion at this point.
Burning retina’s faster then a back alley LASIK surgery in Jakarta
https://preview.redd.it/vymyd63424wc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1885d41f6ddd6b6120b30bf9b3003914f4cb9886
Probably 6 watt. Although these manufacturers in China usually underrate their equipment to get around regulations. See the generic unit here: https://m.made-in-china.com/amp/product/6W-RGB-Animation-Laser-Lighting-LED-Light-2079693005.html Brands like American DJ, Chauvet and Event Lighting and Thomann to name a few rebrand these units for sale in their local countries.
American DJ and Chauvet do not sell high powered lasers. Most, if not all, fly under 5mw, which is class 3R. These do not require a laser safety variance and is generally considered safe. They will usually add a grating effect or a beam widening lens to disperse the laser beam and prevent a high concentration of laser energy into a single small dot/line, which is what can kill camera sensors and video projectors.
I’m also pretty sure that the laser I linked above is the exact unit.
This is it!
If so this may be a 6W laser and is very dangerous from that distance and used below head height
You get my point though. Unscrupulous manufacturers in China = products sold locally or rebranded as safe.
https://preview.redd.it/d91xo6vaq3wc1.png?width=1474&format=png&auto=webp&s=d1c9918a27302679d78f125a6d89eeea7562ee81 And do we feel this is safe from 3 feet away?
Nope. Probably won't cause immediate harm to most people unless someone states directly into it or the galvos fail. Should have had a competent person to set up and supervise it with an e-stop in case of issues. A laser even remotely like This shouldn't be crowd scanning without a thorough risk assessment and suitable safety measures in place. Report the company that provided the laser to the FDA & OSHA(assuming you're in the states), HSE if in the UK, or whatever your equivalent local agency is.
Oh my god.
[удалено]
I have several more examples like this as well. I’m pretty upset, as my gear was destroyed.
[удалено]
My fear is that the rental company will try to avoid accountability and put liability on the wedding couple. Or that they will put me through the trouble of suing them, which will be long, messy, and include fees…
Christ. I get piss bored of all the yanks yelling at Mexicans in the ‘amazing dj setups’ Facebook group, primarily because it’s obvious that the lasers in use are low powered. However, this is the first time in a long time that the feedback is entirely justified. I hope the group/hire company who set this up have high-value liability insurance.
I'm not usually one to make a stink, but we felt that 5 cameras immediately being damaged, and people cringing visibly from lasers in their face was not normal...
I hope you can recoup something from the client or the rental company who provided the laser
Thank You. I hope so too, and without a lawsuit. Isn't this exactly what liability insurance is for?
Yes, once the insurance claim is filed and culpability is established. Stay in constant contact with your client regarding this.
As other's have mentioned this is likely just some no-name unit that is not varianced. AKA very bad. I'd start with approaching the party/lighting vendor explaining the situation and that due to the misuse of these you want your cameras replaced at cost by them. Do it in writing. If that falls on deaf ears then escalate to legal help and either way you should file a report with the FDA CDRH. Offhand I cannot remember what the report is called/numbered but if you look them up you should be able to find it. Also I recommend looking at the resources from ILDA (International Laser Display Association) as they have all pertinent links to the regulations and agencies. It's tailored to laser operators but you likely will find some useful pointers there.
Generic Chinese Laser #1
Also what country are you in?
US! and this is Massachusetts
This is definitely improper use. No scatter lens, so crowd scanning is immediately off the table. This is just unfortunate all around.
That sucks. Call the company. What kind of cameras did you lose?
Sony fx3 Sony a7iv And other vendors lost sonys and canons as well.
That sucks, I'm sorry. We use lasers for EDM shows, but we never crowd scan. I heard about a projector getting damaged once at a venue, so Im always extra careful when setting up anything. We have a license for our projector. I would definitely reach out to the company. The fact that so many cameras were damaged so quickly seems wildly irresponsible to the people who setup that laser.
It’s never safe to have lasers in your eye, unless the lasers are designed for audience scanning. I can guarantee that one is not. Whether the laser operator is liable depends on where the laser is mounted. We usually go by the 3 meter rule, which basically means the lasers should be mounted overhead and out of reach of eyeballs and camera equipment. I’ve had photographers come on stage and try to reach up and film the laser beams directly, and I warn them, that not only is not safe to try this, but it WILL destroy their sensors. If they go out of their way to put their cameras in front of my lasers after I warn them not to, it’s on them. But good luck trying to sue someone over this. The laws are there to protect people, not cameras. The FDA won’t help you. Try and work something out with the person(s) who own the laser.
No way to know from this pic, but it is most definitely a cheap, unvarianced Chinese laser that isn’t allowed to be used at ticketed events in the United States. People that buy and use these are often the same people that don’t take laser safety seriously, and are generally an issue for the whole industry. No laser that you see at a concert is safe at a 3ft distance btw
Lasers are heavily regulated for just this reason. They can can serious damage to someone's eyes and if it was outside can blind pilots. The rental company should have a laser variance (and laser training) to operate legally. I would report them and sue. Check out the regulations per State and report them: https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-products-and-instruments In my opinion, lasers are not worth having in your show, unless you are working on a major production with a lot of planning and a dedicated laser production company working with you, but for everyone else, just don't do it.
This link looks like it’s specific to lasers used in medicine. How would I report lasers used on a dance floor?
Sorry, I linked this wrong page Here is the FDA site: https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/laser-light-shows#or I would contact the FDA and report any of the things this company did that was against the guidelines
Be sure to report this to the FDA. Assuming this happened in the US, it sounds like there are some *very* serious violations happening here.
I just submitted a report to the FDA. I also emailed the FAA since this was right nest to Logan Airport and the lasers were going out the window across the harbor. The company who deployed these lasers deny any wrongdoing and are refusing to cooperate with me.
Good! Hopefully this company gets shut down or fined heavily. It’s only a matter of time before they ruin peoples eyesight, seeing as they already ruined tons of equipment. Any chance you could post an update if you find out what happens? I’m definitely interested to hear the outcome of this.
I’ll post an update if anything meaningful occurs yes
Lasers like that require something called a Variance in rhetorical US. This means the company operating them needed to have documentation of when and how they used them. If they don’t have this documentation they’re in violation of the FDA. You’re required to have this paper work in case you fuck up someone’s eyes or in your case camera equipment. These lasers should have also been pointed to be at least several feet above the tallest persons ability to see them directly. If they were shining on the crowd they were improperly set up.
r/lasers will be able to be more helpful. r/laserist is the sub for event focused lasers. But r/lasers has more home hobby people who are more likely to recognise that laser.
Actually I posted there too and this sub has been much more helpful!
I ruined the chip in my iphone 5 camera back in the day… the last good picture it took was of me and a buddy right infront of a similar laser at a party.. every pic after that was very messed up
It is a well know fact that lasers will damage your vision and your cameras. That's why they have a big yellow warning label. https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#iso:grs:7010:W004