Your application is used all the time for automated welding. It really doesn't matter to the camera what the source of light is as long as it has a source.
You can adjust the white balance settings to appear the same as it would behind a hood. I have a lense made for my sony that is specifically for that purpose.
The only concern with it would be using it extensively without a filter lense. Over time it would burn the camera out, but if you can look at it through a lense without burning your eyes out, so can the camera.
The picture out of this thread was taken without a lense.
http://www.aws.org/cgi-bin/mwf/topic_show.pl?pid=71673;hl=picture