I've heard that filming a lazer show might be hazardous to your cam if the lazer beam were to hit the sensor. I'm not sure if that's true. The arc weld might be more intense than a lazer?

I would put a welder screen in front of the camera to be on the safe side. In any case, you don't want to burn out (saturate) your recording, so you will need a neutral density filter of some sort, surely.

While it is less likely to burn a CCD or CMOS chip unlike the old tube cameras, it is certainly not impossible. I had a client several years ago that damaged his CCD camera filming some arc welding. As was suggested, a welders screen is a good idea or some sort of seriously dark neutral density filter.

We've lost a couple of sensors to lasers, different problem to arc welders. Simplest thing would be to put the camera behind a welding mask. That'll provide enough ND and protect the camera from any splatter and if it's being hand held the operator's hand as well.

Might need to consider what you want to show in the video, the arc creating puddles or the person doing the welding. From a few training videos I've watched on YT autoexposure can do a good job of letting you capture both.

Bob.

Might need to consider what you want to show in the video, the arc creating puddles or the person doing the welding. From a few training videos I've watched on YT autoexposure can do a good job of letting you capture both.

But wouldn't shooting thru a welding filter prevent you from seeing *anything* other than the weld itself?

In my one experience I had, I used a ND filter with my XHA1 and had no problems. I believe I may have put the camera into Spotlight mode if not manual. In my opinion the footage was acceptable and the camera to this day is just fine.

-Chad

But wouldn't shooting thru a welding filter prevent you from seeing *anything* other than the weld itself?

Yes, I'd expect that to be the case. Depeninding on the camera it might make a valiant effort to get exposure right by winding the gain up as high as it goes but then you could well end up with it recording the inside of the helmet.
You can usually flip the filter up on those masks though. The more recent welding helmets use an active filter, no idea what outcome you'd get shooting through one of those.
All I'm suggesting is some ideas to try. Jobs like this always leave enough time to experiment. One reason I suggested the use of a welding mask was to protect not just the lens but also the body of the camera. If hot metal can damage a lens it could do major damage to the plastic body of the camera.

Bob.

Arc welding doesn't tend to spit molten metal around too far, gas welding (especially if the tip is too close to the work and backfires) will splatter molten metal around quite a distance and a cutting torch can spray stuff everywhere.

With arc welding there are two issues to be concerned with as far as the light from the arc - the first is the very intense UV from the arc (intense enough that anybody with exposed skin close to welding can get sunburned quickly) - that is what will do the most damage to the eyes also. The second is the very bright white light from the arc although that is not as bad as the UV. If I was going to be close to the arc, I would definitely have a protective shield for the camera that stops uv and any sparks. I would be more inclined to shoot from farther back and zoom in a bit with at least a ND filter on the camera. Be very careful when you are shooting that you don't manage to get your own eyes exposed - arc flash can cause damage to unprotected eyes fairly quickly. My arc welding helmet has an auto-dark feature where it is like sun glasses until you strike an arc then goes to very dark so you can see the weld. According to the information that came with the helmet, even if the autodark does not work, the protective plastic over the front will block the dangerous UV stuff. Arc welding is nothing to play with - be careful !!

mikey

no one's asked whether you're shooting to tape.....

if so, electric arc welding can cause havoc with the actual tape recording - we did a series for tafe (higher education) about welding a few years ago and shooting with pd 170 and 150 found that;

a. setting the cameras to auto iris did a pretty decent job of exposure

b. the camera nearest the transformer had 'strangely distorted' recordings each time the weld was made (ie. the transformer kicked in). was told it was probably from the magnetic field.

c. we shot with mid tele - there was a stills guy there who shot from about 1.5mts away and did in his uv filter and a nasty 'scar' to camera body from sparks

The magnetic fields are definitely something to watch for - especially for cameras using tape, but I would avoid them as much as possible. You will also want to stay clear of the welding cables themselves for the same reason (both the hot and the ground cable can have some significant magnetics associated with them).

mikey

Filming a laser show will definitely damage a camera. About 10 years ago, I helped a friend of mine video a small rock concert. We were both using Digital 8 camcorders. After the show, he told me that he got some fantastic footage which included shots where the lasers had been beaming in his direction. The footage was pretty good, but the either the lens, ot the CCD had black dots burnt onto it. Unfortunately, Sony here in South Africa had no spares so he had to throw it away.