Comments

fldave wrote on 8/31/2009, 12:34 PM
Shoot through welding glasses and remove the green (usually green, I think) in post?

Home depot, about $15-$20 or so?
Coursedesign wrote on 8/31/2009, 12:43 PM
UV filter to protect the lens, cardboard to keep flying molten metal away from you and the camera, and don't look directly at the arc.

CCDs in consumer and prosumer cameras can have a distracting vertical smear, if this affects you, you could always substitute stock footage for the close-ups.

Filing someone welding
Dach wrote on 8/31/2009, 4:31 PM
I captured some robotic welding early this year. During my experience I was relatively close the machinery. Yes you should protect your eyes or atleast avoid looking directly at the weld.

Accept for a UV filter I did nothing special with my camera. To do a comparison I did film it with and without the electronic ND filter on. (Canon XHA1). Its my understanding the camera's sensors are not damaged and after the fact I have no evidence that they were.

Chad
Tech Diver wrote on 9/1/2009, 7:49 AM
I don't know about the effects on the camera sensors, but I do know that arc welding produces high amounts of UV. Many years ago as an engineering student I was arc welding a test apparatus for merely 10 minutes. I had a full face mask but was wearing a tee-shirt. My arms got quite strongly sunburned.

Peter
Laurence wrote on 9/1/2009, 11:12 AM
Anyone have an alpha layer shot (maybe in Quicktime PNG format)? If you had that you could just shoot the welder without the electricity turned on.
tumbleweed7 wrote on 9/1/2009, 11:39 AM

I shot someone arc welding (a company how to, for their product) years ago, & all I remember what I finally did was to stay a safe distance back(zoomed in), used a high shutter speed 1/500 or higher I think, & used a welding mask for my own protection... footage looked great...
gpsmikey wrote on 9/2/2009, 7:20 AM
Be very careful around arc welding (including MIG, TIG etc). Not only is it very bright, but it has intense UV that can do significant damage to your eyes in a very short period of time (like just the initial flash can leave you feeling like you have sand in your eyes). A torch (gas welding), while almost as bright, has none of the UV so it is not nearly as dangerous (unless you get molten metal splattered in your eyes !! ).

I have used an Olympus point and shoot a couple of times from 5 or 6 feet back with no apparent damage to the camera, but I would probably suggest shooting through either a good ND filter or a welding filter (for arc) and adjusting the resulting image as needed for the desired results. Again, be careful with even the initial flash - that UV is nasty stuff and has been linked to cataracts later in life. Some of the newer welding hoods are really cool - they are "auto-dark" and are about like normal sunglasses when looking through them (so you can see where you are trying to light the silly arc), then they auto-darken as soon as the arc lights. I have one and love it !!

mikey