Welding Photography

Date 03-03-2005 15:07

I would like to see the replies on this too.

My opinion would be that the person taking the picture "should have" a welding lens in front of the viewer portion of the camera. Another thing that comes to mind is "overexposed pictures" with all the light that is generated from welding. I'm not a pro photographer either, so the camera may be able to be set up to handle that amount of light, I don't know. I'm one of those photographers that use the "AUTO" settings :)

Are you looking to capture details of what the welder is seeing as he/she welds? or just a welder in action?
John Wright

By 357max

Date 03-03-2005 15:08

Wear flash goggles (colored safety glasses) Set the camera up to trigger remotely and flood the arc with light greater than the arc. No filters are necessary. If you don't use a light source use a welding filter but still trigger the shutter remotely so you don't need to view through the camera.

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 03-04-2005 18:55

If any of you have a few pictures that you wouldn't mind sharing, please email them to me at Jwright650@aol.com. Add AWS or something recognizable in the subject line so the spam filter will let it through.
Thanks,
John Wright

I'm looking for a few ideas for an upcoming student weld off. I hope to get a few good shots with the students in action.

By DGXL

Date 03-04-2005 20:25

John:
I have GB's of photos, what process(es) do you need?

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 03-04-2005 20:31

Hey thanks DGXL,
SMAW and GMAW will be the processes used in the student weld off.
Any thing interesting will be great. If the pics are really large files, maybe shoot a couple emails rather than one with a really large attachment. I have T-1 here at work but I'm on dial-up at the house.
John Wright

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 03-22-2005 14:08

Update :
We held our Section's first student weldoff last night(03/21/05). Everything went great except my picture taking. I am bummed that I didn't do as well as I could have. I was trying to do too many things at once and didn't get to concentrate on taking pictures. Keeping 13 welding booths busy and supplied with materials needed to complete the projects we had for them to do and monitoring to make sure everyone was working safely and also marking each of the projects as they completed them while trying to sneak in and snap a few pictures was more than I could keep up with. I was carrying my shield in one hand and camera in the other and I just didn't take the time to make sure I was good and steady and my pictures paid the price. I had 3 pictures out of all that I took, that came out clear. The kids looked like they had fun and I know I did. I hope it will be a booster to help take them to the next level in thier welding. An event like that takes a lot of "human" resources and I appreciate all that helped out to make that event happen. We will have a better idea of things to help the next one to go even smoother.

Thanks for all the help and to those who took thier time to email me pictures.
John Wright

By billvanderhoof (****)

Date 03-04-2005 05:09

I've not done this either but my advice would be-
Check with the manufacturer of digital camera to find out if there is a level of light that will hurt a ccd.
A UV filter couldn't hurt (welding produces UV by the ton) and if you wind up with spatter stuck to it you won't be nearly as mad as if it was stuck to the front of your lens.
Your eyes are not safe with a film camera since you are seeing the light from the subject. Digital cameras are generally showing what the ccd sees on an lcd and would be safe. I would think that the approach with film would be to set up on a tripod, focus, and then shoot without looking. The remote release suggested above is a good idea. The fill lighting suggested above will be necessary if you want to see the surrounding area. Light metering may be a problem, shoot a wide range of settings and pick what suits you. Too short an exposure will stop the sparks in the air and that may look funny, again shoot a range...
Have fun
Bill

By DGXL

Date 03-04-2005 18:25

caman:

1.) Some good tips here on welding photos.
2 of mine are at this website: http://www.iasonline.org/

2.) A good thread on macrophotography by tusco in this forum on 02-14-05.

3.) Using caution in the weld shop is always a good idea (threads on this topic as well). I have been shooting photos of welders in progress for about 13 years. All light rays (part of the magnetic spectrum) are diffused to some degree everytime they pass through a medium such as glass, plastic, etc. Even a clear piece of glass will diffuse some of the ionizing rays passing through.

In other words, as long as you don't remain stationary and stare (even through the lense) directly at the arc, for a long enough exposure time, and at an ideal distance, flash burn does not occur. Not any more than you will get burned observing welders as you walk through the weld shop. We all learn to train our eyes away from the direct arc-light and do so every day. I did not say throw caution to the wind, leave that for the Hollywood "welders".

4.) As noted above, use plenty of background or fill lighting, this helps with definition and contrast.

5.) Digitals (IMHO) fair better on actual welding activities because you can doctor up the images far better than scanned images using SLR's. This is dependant on the photo-manipulation software you use. And, as noted by Bill, you can use the LCD to look at instead of the view finder (which I have never used on my digital). With my SLR's it's always hit or miss for close-ups of actual welding. Indoors is the most difficult, (also IMHO) for foto-novices like myself.

I could send you some photos of welds in progress (GMAW-SMAW-FCAW) and you would be hard pressed to figure out which ones are digital or 35mm.

6.) One very good piece of advice by Bill also is to take care of those lenses regardless of the camera. My digital has a big-ass piece of spatter on the lense from PAC - that does not show up in the images. I got lucky on this, I have more $ tied up in lenses that camera bodies.

Some of the photos with flying sparks do look awesome!

By caman Date 03-15-2005 18:03

Thanks to all.
As usual, the info from hands-on experience that is available on this forum is pretty amazing.

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 03-15-2005 19:08

Here are a couple of pics that I experimented with a couple days ago.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/jwright650/welding%20pictures/ee9c8ea6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/jwright650/welding%20pictures/Dsc00005.jpg
John Wright

By Xwelder Date 03-25-2005 06:55

Hi. I'm new to the site but thought I'd jump in with these

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/Xwelder/wpic2a.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/Xwelder/wpic1a.jpg

These were taken with a digital camera with no filter

By jfwi

Date 03-15-2005 19:24

I have with a filter over the camera lens (I use a Nikon 4500) you can take some real nice shot of the welding process.

By pipewelder_1999 (****)

Date 06-13-2005 17:28

Hey Everyone,

I did some video of some SMAW E6010 using a digital camera. It came out pretty I though. Let me know what you think. I had to push and pull the exposure comensation a couple of times to get the puddle visible.

Each Vid is about 600K so it may take some time on dialup.

http://www.weldinginspectionsvcs.com/SMAWVideo.htm

Have a nice day

Gerald Austin

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 06-14-2005 14:12

Cool vids! :)
John Wright

By pipewelder_1999 (****)

Date 06-14-2005 16:26

Thanks John

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 06-14-2005 20:27

Gerald those vids remind me of that vid of the spray transfer and then when you run your mouse over it changes to globular. We have it on our AWS section site....http://aws.org/sections/swvirginia/
John Wright

By HgTX

Date 06-27-2005 22:45

You sure that's not short circuit?

Cool vid.

Hg