Welding videos

[tonyfoale]

I wanted to make some video shots of MIG welding for a tool making video but I had never done this before and I didn't want to destroy my camera. I do not know how easy it is to burn the sensor.
I thought that for safety sake I needed to hold a welding helmet filter in front of the lens. I did not not want to spend much time on this and to mount a typical rectangular filter looked to be too much work, but then I wondered about the circular lenses from gas welding goggles. I quickly discovered that two filters gave about the same light attenuation as a typical electric welding filter. My luck was running well and got even better when I discovered that the round filters were a perfect fit into a 52mm camera UV filter that I had from my film photography days. My camera lens has a 67 mm thread so I made a stack of reduction rings from 67 mm down to 52 mm, installed the UV filter followed by the two welding filters also followed by a welding UV filter.
It worked, the videos came out nicely and the camera still functions.

Click thumbnail for full size images.
The components.


Filters stacked. Some plasticine holds it altogether.


Fitted to the camera.

I expect that there are several people on this forum who have videoed welding and I would love to hear how others have done it. Videos on the net seem to vary a lot regarding quality and brightness so I suspect that some people just use a naked camera ????????

[ranald]

Nice work Tony.I'm a novice but I was wondering if a clear lens protector could have been used to hold the light protective ones in the cavity in place instead of all that work?
I remember seeing, a few years back, a pro photographer who had his lens signed by a soccer/football player (out of the blue) with a permanent marker thus destroying his $100 000 lens. A $30 clear protector would have saved all that cost.

[Frank S]

Nice work Tony.I'm a novice but I was wondering if a clear lens protector could have been used to hold the light protective ones in the cavity in place instead of all that work?
I remember seeing, a few years back, a pro photographer who had his lens signed by a soccer/football player (out of the blue) with a permanent marker thus destroying his $100 000 lens. A $30 clear protector would have saved all that cost.

He was lucky he wasn't at a golf game photographing John Day on a bad day

[tonyfoale]

Nice work Tony.I'm a novice but I was wondering if a clear lens protector could have been used to hold the light protective ones in the cavity in place instead of all that work?.

Maybe I wasn't clear but I did put the dark lens on the clear one. It was basically a no work solution, I had to make nothing.

[ranald]

Maybe I wasn't clear but I did put the dark lens on the clear one. It was basically a no work solution, I had to make nothing.

Thanks for clarifying. I am dyslexic and often misunderstand & am often misunderstood. Always correcting my ramblings of spelling & grammer & auto setups make it even worse, but I think I usually get a point across. I often take so long that another post slips in & confusion sets in so often respond/reply with quote. I've seen others wondering about that & of course there are timelags in tech.

[Frank S]

I don't know if the intensity of the arc flash contributes to long term damage of the electronics of a digital camera but my old Nikon 35 mm if I didn't use several stages of filtering the film would be so over exposed and any aperture setting the developer would not even print the frames for me.

[ranald]

I don't know if the intensity of the arc flash contributes to long term damage of the electronics of a digital camera but my old Nikon 35 mm if I didn't use several stages of filtering the film would be so over exposed and any aperture setting the developer would not even print the frames for me.

A couple of nights ago I was disappointed that we wouldn't see the ecllipse. So I took a shot on my nikon anyway. It didn't tfr sorry. try again

[tonyfoale]

I don't know if the intensity of the arc flash contributes to long term damage of the electronics of a digital camera but my old Nikon 35 mm if I didn't use several stages of filtering the film would be so over exposed and any aperture setting the developer would not even print the frames for me.

I am not surprised. As one who used to process his own pix I am well aware of what is worth printing or not.

[tonyfoale]

Thanks for clarifying. I am dyslexic and often misunderstand & am often misunderstood. Always correcting my ramblings of spelling & grammer & auto setups make it even worse, but I think I usually get a point across. I often take so long that another post slips in & confusion sets in so often respond/reply with quote. I've seen others wondering about that & of course there are timelags in tech.

No worries, I understand, my wife is slightly dyslexic.

[12bolts]

How does a permanent marker destroy a camera lens?

......I remember seeing, a few years back, a pro photographer who had his lens signed by a soccer/football player (out of the blue) with a permanent marker thus destroying his $100 000 lens. .......

Permanent markers aren't really "permanent", next time you want to get permanent marker off a (smooth) surface just colour over it with a white board marker and then wipe it off with a cloth. Even if you used a scribe and permanently damaged the front element, they are replaceable. (They are made that way as the front element is prone to damage). Even so, quality SLR lenses are completely dismantlable, so if you damaged any of the internals they can be repaired/replaced.

Cheers Phil