You might want to think twice before whipping your phone out at the next concert you attend, as fascinating footage shows how laser effects could cause serious damage to your phone's camera — and maybe even more.
Lights, pyrotechnics, and lasers have become a common part of modern concerts as artists try and make their shows bigger than ever before, but the flashy effects could indeed have a worrying unintentional effect on the audience.
Recording at concerts is an extremely common practice as people want to have something to look back on, and that's how we managed to get the chaos surrounding the CEO kisscam scandal earlier this year.
However, you might want to be wary about recording when there are lasers flying about, as while it might look great momentarily, it could cause serious permanent damage to your phone.
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As shared by u/thepotatomanishere on Reddit, fascinating footage shows what happens when bright concert lasers and a phone camera come face to face, and it's not a pretty sight.
Black lines start to appear on the screen after the laser rapidly flashes over the camera sensor, and it's a sign that the lasers being users are perhaps more powerful than they should be.
Now you might be wondering if it's just a temporary effect that will be gone once you stop recording, but unfortunately this has almost definitely caused permanent damage that you can only fix by getting a new phone.
This is because the high energy concentration of the laser overloads and burns the individual pixels on the camera sensor, which is only accentuated when the camera's lens magnifies the beam.
What's worse is that can happen even when you're not recording, as phone cameras don't have shutters and therefore the sensor is always exposed to incoming light.
Of course, if you keep your phone in your pocket then you'll be safe, but having it out and exposed to any potential contact with the laser is likely going to end in some damage taking place.
That's unfortunately far from the only thing you should be worrying about too, as any laser that's powerful enough to cause damage to your phone also has the potential to affect your face and eyes too, which is a potential health risk.
"If it can destroy your camera sensor, it can destroy your eyes too," one commenter warned. "Why the hell are such powerful lasers being aimed close to eyeball height. This feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen!"
Another user argued that "there is no situation where this is safe or approved. If I want to run a laser 1/10 of the power of this one in a room with 12 people, I still have to get a license from the FDA and focus the beams out of eye range.
"Any laser that's effective for a show this bright is absolutely doing damage to your face. Don't look at lasers people. And DON'T trust that 'it must be OK, they wouldn't do anything to hurt us, right?'."