Can You remove the Lens while the ‘Camera is ON’?

Removing the lens while the camera is still on is not a big question until you experience the situation. When my friend who doesn’t have any knowledge about the cameras and lens forcefully removed the lens without turning off the camera. So, Can you remove the lens while the camera is on?

Yes, you can remove the camera lens while the camera is ON and the camera sensor won’t be affected but the aperture will be in the same value. Sensors will attract more dust than when the aperture is open. Some photographers internally remove the lens while the camera is ON just to maintain the same aperture. 

As a beginner, do you think you can also do the same? Not at all. Canon and Nikon camera experts have different experiences and some of them damaged the power pins as well. So, here is the complete information. 

Does removing the lens turn off the camera?

Nope, removing the lens won’t turn off your camera and it will lock the aperture. IOf the aperture is open while you remove the lens, it will open until you close it. Many students ask these questions and they feel that removing the lens without turning it off will fry the sensor and lens as well. 

What happens when you remove the lens?

Let’s talk about the most famous camera brands Canon and Nikon. On both camera brands, when you look at the camera sensor from your side keeping the camera pointing to you, you can see some small pins. 

The leftmost pins on the body are the 6v lens power pins and when you remove or rotate the lens counterclockwise direction, power is removed from the lens. So, if the lens is disengaged from the pins and the body, the lens is no longer able to communicate with the camera. 

If this happens suddenly, there might be little bad data getting passed between the camera and lens which may corrupt anything. If you find any error in the process, attach the lens back in and now remove them only after turning off the camera. This will solve the problem of any error (rarely happens).

When there is no lens and no power pin to make a contact, body power pins also don’t worry much. If there would be such a mechanism like this, hundreds of cameras and lenses will be damaged because beginners just remove the lens like that. 

If the shutter is open, changing the lenses in the dust area may take dust particles into the sensor. If dust is blown through the mount opening and into the sensor would cause the dust to stick to the sensor. And if the process is being done in humidity conditions, the moisture could attract the dust and make it harder to remove. 

Canon users do this from time to time intentionally for taking time-lapses and panoramas. It eliminates some flicker in the aperture mechanism. But most of the professionals do dust removal afterward.

How to change the lens from not Exposing it to Dust?

Thousands of photographers change the lens while the camera is still on and they do not care about the dust and humidity as we said before. But there are few things to consider, as a beginner, you need to protect the sensor and lens as much as you can.

So, beginners make the mistake of changing the lens in an open area. No matter if the camera is ON or OFF, changing the lens in an open area makes the way to allow dust and water dots respective on weather conditions. Also, you must take care of the lens from the Sun while changing. I’ve written a useful article on how to protect your lens and sensor from Sun damaging them. 

So, first to avoid dust and other minor particles, point your camera towards the ground and remove the lens as fast as you can but carefully. 

With Canon and some other brands, sensor cleaning is performed with the camera ON. The manual advises to activate the sensor and then to clean the sensor. Sensor cleaning will leave the sensor in a different state when the camera is On. 

Even though this argument takes place, cleaning the sensor when the Camera is On is still a better choice. The camera is a battery-powered device and you all know that. All the sensor has to prepare to shoot and it will be in charge through heat since the last shot. Lens changing immediately after clicking the pictures or video still has the heat on the sensor and is more likely to attract dust from any distance. 

Even camera manuals will not have the point of removing your lens only after turning off the camera. I just checked some EOS 300 and didn’t find anything about this. So, the manual says it is fine to remove or change the lens while the camera is ON. 

If you are using an old camera and have a manual you can read from there and if you do not have a manual, there wouldn’t be any problem but you can turn off the camera. As a beginner, when I was changing the lens I found a display error and It was like a panic attack. Soon after that, I turned off the camera and turned on back, the display is fine now and no error was detected.

Why do Some Photographers Intentionally do it?

Experts may have different opinions and they follow the common trick for timepiece photography. Most DSLRs will keep the aperture wide open until the shutter drops and then it will close down for the shot. 

This can result in a slight change in color grading from shot to shot. You may have come across the color change in the timelapse video. To avoid it, many timelapse photographers will hold the aperture preview button and then change the lens with a small twist. 

This makes electronic connections off for a while and the aperture will be permanently set to the f-number. 

Careful with Nikon camera while removing the lens

Nikon lenses have a mechanical connection for aperture control that is loaded at both the camera end and inside the lens and if the lens disconnected in the wrong position, it might suffer damage. 

Some Nikon cameras also have mechanical connections between the camera and lens for autofocus saving. If the lens is disconnected or removed while the focus point is moving, there would be potential damage. Canon EOS lens has no mechanical connections and there are no warnings as well. 

So, I would say it is fine to remove the lenses from the cameras like EOS. One thing is clear that, if the connection is all electrical it should be safe to remove the lens without turning off the camera and if the connection is manual, there would be potential damage to the lens and sensor as well.

Moose from a forum said that his 400mm telephoto lens works on D90 only if he puts it on when the camera is turned ON. If he connects the lens first and then turns on the camera, he gets the error. So, different opinions are shared across the web and you have to decide. If you change lenses frequently, put the camera inside the camera bag and change the lens every time. 

Conclusion

Beginners might have a lot of concern about this and if some errors happened when tried before you might have experienced the fear of damaging the lens and camera. To be clear, any mechanical connection between the lens and the camera’s other aspects might not be a big issue.

Also, even though your camera has an electrical connection, moving the lens on the wrong side or applying some force might damage the power pins on both body and lens. So, as a Beginner always remove the lens after turning off the camera or if you want to change multiple lenses, keep the body towards the ground or away from the wind and remove/change the lenses.