Thanks, Spot,

I was thinking along the same lines -- turn the ND on and blast it -- almost the same approach as when you have a bright background, but don't want to lose it when shooting the foregorund.

KH

also suggest doing some stuff at slow shutter speeds, if they are available on your camera - the streaks will be beautiful.

Personally, I wouldn't overlight the scene at all. The brightness of the welding arc will light enough to see what's going on and there's no way you'll ever get a real fill on the sparks. Luckily, in tape, you'll be able to see what's going on. Although I doubt you're going to have this particular problem, I personally would NOT schedule close-ups or interviews directly AFTER the welding shots, just in case your CCD's carry any memory. In a short amount of time, if you've done a burn on the chip, it will fade, but if you're shooting the CEO of the company; well, I'd do him first.

Oh yes - if it's an arc welder do NOT look at it with your unprotected eyes - period. If it's a gas welder, you'll be ok

Is this a how-to video? Do you need shots of the welding in progress? i.e. tight on the weld
If you need shots like that ask the person doing the welding if they have a spare #10 shade and put it over the lens. Manual focus and manual shutter and make a few test runs.

Hunter

I taped a plasma cutter and the XL-1 handled it quite well on automatic settings. There were also a few other welding shots but I cannot tell you what kind of welding it was.

Be very careful with Arc welding....It will hurt your eyes and I mean it hurts.
The problem is you wont feel it till ya wake up the next day most of the time.
Get some glasses from a worker if ya can.
w/

Thanks for all the input. I'm printing off this thread for reference.

It's not a "how-to" -- just a union piece. Didn't realize the chips can carry a memory (I use a GL-1). That's good to know. I will be sure to carry eye protection. I lacerated my right eye over the pupil 5 years ago and it still opens up occasionally -- don't need any more pain in the eye department...

Extremely helpful input. Thanks to all of you.

I just happen to be a former welder... heed the above warnings regarding any kind of electrical process. T.I.G, M.I.G. Plasma cutting, all produce X-rays and will even cause sunburn. They will also throw off sparks which consist of molten metals, and will destroy the coating on your lens. Shoot through plexiglass or a welding lens. (They come out of the hood) Best is the electronic welding hoods which instantly darken when exposed to the arc.

I took some video of a small TIG (tungsten-inert gas) wire-feed welder. Indoor workshop, and outdoors in the shade. Zooming in tight on the action, the rest of the image went dark, but I thought it was a dramatic image of the arc and flying sparks. I was happy with the image as-is, although the workpiece was nearly dark on the tight closeups.

I was careful to hide behind the camera and look only through the viewfinder, so my eyes were not directly exposed to the arc. Fortunately, the viewfinder doesn't reproduce the UV :-).

Never shot arc welding, but long before I got into video, a videographer shot ME arc welding for a demo. I didn't know anything about a camera at the time.
He wheeled the camera in from the TV studio which was in the same building. It was a full size JVC TV studio camera. I think he was shooting on 3/4" tape.

The end result was that the intense light destroyed the camera and the repair was extremely expensive from what he told me later. Boy was he pissed. I am not sure what he did wrong. Maybe he didn't have the proper lens filter.

John

All welding emits X-rays and I really would be very timid on how close the camera would get. Could wipe out every chip in the camera.

JJK

No welding device will come close to emitting X-rays. But they will emit UV which i still very nasty stuff. Apart from the bleeding obvious that's been mentioned several times of protecting your eyes I'd be very worried about damaging CCDs. We've lost at least one camera due to someone shining a laser into it. The laser is supposedly safe for humans but sure killed at least one pixel in the CCD so something know to be harmfull to humans may fry quite a bit in the camera.
As SPOT suggested some serious ND filters and/or UV filters might be in order or use the filter from welding glasses.

I would suggest posting this question to someone at The Discovery Channel. I know several shows they air, American Chopper, American Hotrod, Monster Garage and Monster House, that have all had welding shot at some point.

They have shot welding in the background as well as close up and I have not noticed darkening of the rest of the shot.

Sorry about the X-rays. I forgot you need 17,000 volts to create X-rays.

JJK