# Can you shoot video in a Camera WITHOUT lens??



## Eternal (Aug 3, 2013)

Hello, this should be the noobiest of the questions ever!!

I'll buy a camera eventually (Nikon D3100 or D5100) for filming only, so I was wondering, what happens if you use without lens, only the body??

Thanks for understanding my noobness :lmao:


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## molested_cow (Aug 3, 2013)

You probably need to hack it to make it record. When no lens is attached, the camera shows ERR on the display and it won't function. To expose the sensor, you will have to activate mirror lock and in that mode, the sensor isn't recording too. I guess it's simply not as straight forward as a film camera.


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## bratkinson (Aug 3, 2013)

Once you hack the camera to lift the mirror and to open the shutter, the next 'trick' would be to make it bypass focus mechanisms (eg, set MF on the absent lens) as there is nothing other than 'giant blur' for the camera to focus on. 

The function of a lens is to take a 'wide area' of what the lens 'sees' and shrink it down to fit onto the sensor. Without a lens, there is no way to do this. Think of a person that wears 'Coke bottle' thick glasses. Take their glasses off, and all they see is a blur...the same as these old eyes of mine do when looking at something close without my glasses.

And, don't forget that your eyes have 'automatic focusing' lenses within.


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## AlexanderB (Aug 3, 2013)

Eternal said:


> Hello, this should be the noobiest of the questions ever!!
> 
> I'll buy a camera eventually (Nikon D3100 or D5100) for filming only, so I was wondering, what happens if you use without lens, only the body??
> 
> Thanks for understanding my noobness :lmao:



It will not work, just plain and simple. Previous answers make it look like it's possible. It's not.


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## Benco (Aug 3, 2013)

Why would you want to shoot without a lens?


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## molested_cow (Aug 3, 2013)

Oh btw, a lens limits the amount of light coming through to get the right exposure. To shoot without a lens, you have no light control, which means your video/image will likely to be just white.


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## Buckster (Aug 3, 2013)

I don't know about Nikon camera abilities in regards to the question asked, but on my Canon 5DMKII and 7D cameras, everything said above is incorrect.  I just tried it with both.  I removed the lens and was able to shoot stills and video no problem.  

Without the lens on, I did get a text on the back screen of the 7D saying to make sure there was a lens attached and to press stop/go to proceed.  But then, even without attaching a lens, I pressed stop/go, and started recording, no problem.  It didn't try to stop me any further.  The 5DMKII had no warning at all, and just went ahead and started recording.

The results were the same.  No focus, obviously, but I got a recording out of each, and as I moved the camera around, the colors changed to reflect what it was aimed at.  Here's one of them:






ETA: I figured it would work before I even tested it, btw, because there are plenty of lenses being used with adapters, bellows, extension tubes, etc., that don't communicate with the lens, so I couldn't see how the camera would know the difference between whether one of those was being used, or if there was no lens on the camera at all.  Testing confirmed my thoughts - at least on the Canon cameras I own.


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## bratkinson (Aug 4, 2013)

Buckster...wow!  

I hadn't 'thought it out' like you did, and completely forgot that various between the lens/camera adapters, tubes and whatnot frequently have no communication with the camera.  But then, I don't have any of those.

What resulted is pretty much what I expected if no lens was used...a very difuse white light with various tints here and there.


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## Eternal (Aug 5, 2013)

Benco said:


> Why would you want to shoot without a lens?



I'm confused, who mentioned I wanted to shoot without a lens if I didn't even know if it was possible??

Thanks for the other answers, in resume, it's impossible, unless you spend more time hacking the cam instead of getting some lens.


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## cowleystjames (Aug 5, 2013)

Why would you even consider it unless it's a hypothetical question as the rubbish that's come out on that video wouldn't even be called art 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2


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## Benco (Aug 5, 2013)

Eternal said:


> Benco said:
> 
> 
> > Why would you want to shoot without a lens?
> ...



OK, let me rephrase that: why do you want to know if it's possible to shoot without a lens? there's no need to be defensive, I'm merely curious about why you're asking if it's possible.


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## Solarflare (Aug 5, 2013)

If theres no lens, theres no image. Light from all directions will hit the sensor in every point.

You get some slight variances because even if there is no lens, there is SOME limitation about from where the light is coming from (not every sensor pixel sees the exact same light because the view is limited by the lens mount).

So basically its a camera obscura with a HUGE hole.


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## Eternal (Aug 6, 2013)

Benco said:


> Eternal said:
> 
> 
> > Benco said:
> ...



Defensive???, I said I was confused about your question, you overreacted over my simple question (which anybody was kind enough to answer me about hacks and stuff, except for you, you asked me why I asked, in a forum of begginners, really???)

Anyway, I'm curious about how things work, the different mechanisms attached to other components in order to work and what devices do what in order to make X thing work, with this explanation, now I'm the one who feels dumb, just trying to justify a simple question, never in a defensive position like you claim, jesus man!!

To the other guys, thanks for your answers, I needed to know this!! (not sure if somebody else already had asked this before)

Thanks guys!! (Everybody)


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## Scatterbrained (Aug 6, 2013)

Discounting video, you can get some interesting refractive images without a lens  by placing something in front of the lens and shining light through it (at an angle) to record the refracted light with the sensor. I imagine you could make some interesting background graphics for video by moving the subject around and changing the color of the light while recording.  Just sayin. . . 

How To Make Refractographs: Beautiful Photos of Refracted Light

[video=vimeo;61998183]http://vimeo.com/61998183[/video]


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## Ryan Owens (Nov 3, 2020)

I put a piece of duct tape over my camera and poked a small hole which was about the size of mechanical pencil led (.7mm). This is what I could record:


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## petrochemist (Nov 3, 2020)

Many of my cameras have a 'shoot without lens' option in the menu. Typically the first thing I set after getting the camera as it allows the camera to shoot wehn it can't communicate with the lens. I adapt lenses quitea bit so most of my lenses don't comunicate with the body.

I'm fairly sure they all allow video to be shot.

If this isn't what you mean by without lens, then there are pinhole options like @Ryan Owens demonstrated above or 'refractography' as seen here that don't use lenses at all but definitely creates images.


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## Space Face (Nov 3, 2020)

2013??


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## snowbear (Nov 3, 2020)

So, basically a pinhole camera.



Space Face said:


> 2013??


Not uncommon.  Sometimes they don't see (or look for) the dates.  I've come close, myself.


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