Shooting welding?

G

Greg_E

Veteran
Any tips for shooting shots of welding? Think tighter shots of the metal and the arc. So far what I have is an adjustable auto darkening assembly from a welding helmet taped inside a mattebox. After white balance through the #4 filter it looks ok for the pre-arc video. Once the arc starts is the part I haven't tried yet. The shade goes from a #9 up to a #13. Any tips on ISO, f-stop, shade value, etc? Using an old GH2 so dynamic range is limited. I'll try to throw a bunch of light on the metal so that the pre-arc level can be somewhat close to decent and then hope I can dial in a shade number that works well. I do have a bunch of ND filters I can stick in the trays if the welding shade doesn't get dark enough, but I expect it will get far enough.

Going to be on a tripod while I'm welding, and yes I'll be using a second helmet for my eyes, not relying on the camera to protect me.
 
If you are shooting MIG or stick be sure to cover the camera and other items so they don't get ruined with hot spatter.

The welding shade will get it plenty dark. I don't think you have any worries there. At least not with TIG. I haven't welded MIG or stick in a long time. I'd be interested if you can get the strike decently. My autoshade works remarkably fast, but I don't know how it would look on camera.
 
Last edited:
It's going to be flux core, don't want to spend the money to upgrade to something that can AC TIG for aluminum, so for now I just build in steel and use flux core. Not too worried about splatter, going to be a couple feet away with either a 50mm or 85mm and speedbooster. Just trying to make the metal not get completely blown out vs. trying to see the puddle. Might get some testing done today.
 
Off topic - MIG is great stuff. Fast and easy. The reason I went to TIG is I do many of my projects in aluminum. TIG ruins you for control and precision. But if you need something done in aluminum, the local fabricator can do it much cheaper than buying a TIG, so there's no reason to spend the money unless you become obsessed or have a lot of aluminum projects.
 
I have a lot of stuff I'd like to make in aluminum, but an AC tig is like $1000 and not much more than that for a multi-process machine that still has AC tig. Some stuff aluminum MIG would be fine so I may need to go this route and deal with it, then the multi-process machines are about the same $1000 and I could then TIG steel or MIG steel depending on which was better for the application.

Too hot out to put sleeves and pants on today, so no testing. But I did test fit everything and I'm good to weld the finished parts. I had them tacked together to fit things up and everything looks good.
 
Like everything, it needs practice. Shade on 11 gave me a good view of the arc but everything around it was black. And at that you still couldn't really see the puddle because it was too bright. HDR would have helped but the lowly GH2 doesn't have that much latitude. Next time I'll probably step down to a #10 or so for the shade and let the arc and things directly around it wash out. Either that or I need MORE light on the parts to try and compensate for the contrast. White balance through the shade during normal viewing seemed to work well for the during arc white balance, used roughly daylight LED work lights and ISO 1600 with about an f8 for some depth of field.

Ended up using a cheapo shade unit from a cheapo Harbor Freight helmet, it was a little narrow in height but width was OK (about 16x7 proportions). I'd like to get a larger viewing area for the next time I try this, need to scrounge around on ebay to see what I can find. It was just duct taped inside a mattebox and worked as well as can be considering the limited viewing angle. Used a 50mm with Lens Turbo and it was OK.

One thing I did find was that on f1.2 I couldn't get a focus anywhere. Must have been some kind of optical defect in the shade unit, cleaned up by about f3.5. Worth mentioning in case anyone else stumbles onto this thread. Might be better with a higher quality shade or at least a mount that is square to the lens (can't guarantee that mine was square).
 
I've shot welding a few times. You are asking more than what most modern cameras, other than the highest end, can deliver. The contrast ratio is so extreme, if you get any detail in the welded area, without powerful lighting, everything other than that area will be black or too dark. You could try shooting it outside with the sun exposing your general subject, that might reduce the latitiude needed?
 
I'd go with more light. Seeing the puddle and the weld develop is the point of a welding video. The sun should be a good source of light for lighting the area around the welding. I've used #13 shade to observe the sun during an eclipse.

The Harbor Freight shade is irritatingly small, but after wasting $250 on a Miller helmet that went bad, it doesn't seem so bad. One thing to know about the Harbor Freight helmet is that there are two batteries sealed inside the unit that are not intended to be replaceable. I just learned about this two days ago when it stopped working. Someone has a video showing how they cut it open to replace the batteries, but I found that the two halves come apart. The button batteries are welded to the wires. Cut them out and solder new ones in and you're back in business.
 
It's cheap crap, I'll probably toss it when it goes bad. The batteries are not supposed to be needed, all the power is supposed to come from the photo cells. Or my Kobalt branded cheapo is also not telling me the truth.

My welding was more about the project than the actual welding process, so for me it should be OK for a short clip. I would have used the Sun for lighting, but it got late and was dark outside. This project waited too long as is so I was going to finish last night no matter what. Need to grind a little to fit other components on top of this welded assembly and give it a try. Then clean up and paint. If it was aluminum it would have been clean up and anodize. Shot on my phone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9QXDG1-V00
 
Nice. I've not done anodizing.

I also thought the photo cell ran the shade. It really surprised me when the youtube video showed the hidden batteries. One runs the electronics and the other runs the LCD shading. The LCD shading battery is the one that goes first.
 
That anodizing was using pool chemicals, to me they are much safer than a bottle of sulphuric acid. Clorox pH Down was the specific product. You can use the pH up as a cleaner to substitute for lye, but it doesn't work as well or as fast as lye. Lye can be used to make illegal drugs, so it is getting more difficult to find, and the people at the stores look at you like you are a drug dealer.

It was common RIT organic dye, probably won't put up with much sun, but not to worried because I can always do it again. The industrial dyes are expensive and my results can still be a bit spotty because I don't really have a process other than clean, dump in a bunch of chemical, if it doesn't look like I have enough reaction, dump in more chemical and stir to see if more bubbles start forming, let sit until I think it is done (between 15 minutes and a couple of hours), wash, dye, seal. Pretty haphazard but it seems to be working.

There is also an older Boric acid (and or Borax) process which was the old process the US Navy used on all their planes. It is self sealing and self terminating because the solution does not re-dissolve the oxide layer. It is also a high voltage process, the higher the voltage, the thicker the oxide layer. 6061 starts to arc from some of the alloys in the mix at about 300 volts. This process also doesn't really take dyes, there are no pores to hold the dye. Results in a kind of gray-ish color. The newer process (low voltage) is sulfuric and boric acids, and the newest version is just to keep an ice bath around the solution to chill everything down (cold, hard anodize). Apparently keeping it really cold prevents the aicd from dissolving the oxide as much, so it will close up the pores fairly well. Normally comes out a brownish-blackish color and doesn't take dyes very well. Haven't tried the cold, hard anodize yet, but I've done the Borax version and it was OK protection considering the parts I was doing had nothing (pulleys for my mill), it held up really well to the rubber belt running through the grooves.

Going forward, just about everything I make from aluminum will be anodized now that I found the pool chemical process. There is a good pair of videos on youtube and a couple of websites that detail the process. Need to take a few things apart and anodize too, like the mount for my mattebox which is still raw 6063.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top