miles_feigenbaum___dallas_ Posted July 19, 2005 Share Posted July 19, 2005 Howdy all! My daughter has to shoot some portraits for a portrait class that she's taking this summer. I thought I'd let her take my portrait of myself TIG welding some stainless steel pieces together. She would be using a Canon 1D with 24 to 70 lens, manually focused ahead of time on the work pieces, and camera on tripod. The ambient light plus the arc would be the only light used. I was wondering if anyone has done something similar. I am guessing that she might need to shoot through a welding helmet lens to not burn the digital sensor. She wouldn't necessarily have to look through the lens but would just have to prefocus and then shoot while the welding is going on. Any ideas guys? Metering will also be an experience. Maybe putting on a welding helmet and using the Sekonic L508 spot meter for the arc and again metering on my helmet and experimenting somewhere in the middle of the range. Maybe cummulative in camera metering.. Any thoughts? Gracias amigos! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skipd Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 Don't even think about metering for the arc, in my opinion. It is so much brighter than anything else in the scene that it's going to get blown out regardless - even if the other portions of the subject are nearly black. I would consider using the meter in the incident mode and measuring the light falling on you from the welding arc. Then bracket a bit. It might actually make a better picture if the actual arc was hidden from the camera's view. For example, do your welding on the inside of a piece of angle iron positioned so that the angle iron hides the actual arc from the camera. That way, the smoke and other interesting items will show up better. You also would have no chance of burning the sensor in the camera. I would still get my starting exposure with the incident reading at your position. The light from the arc wouldn't hurt the meter, but weld spatter could. Thus, I would keep the arc away from you a bit more than you might normally have it when welding for real. I do welding too, so I understand the problems. I haven't photographed it, though. An interesting project..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill.akstens Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 Use a slower shutter speed to capture bright arcs of welding debris flying all over. If the shutter is too fast you'll freeze the sparks and it won't look as dramatic. Experiment, maybe 1/4 second shutter speed on a tripod. I don't think a welding helmet will be necessary for the camera, just don't get too close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 That's a toughie. With film I wouldn't worry about it, especially in an SLR. But I'm still ignorant of how vulnerable a digital sensor might be to intense light. With a typical welding helmet filter or comparable photo filter over the lens I doubt anything other than the arc would show up in the photo. So I'm guessing you'll need plenty of "ambient" light, whether natural or supplemental, to balance things out. Last year's Nikon catalog showed a photo of a fellow welding on some high iron. There was a combination of light from the arc plus ambient light provided by discrete use of flash. The photographer also used a slow shutter speed. You could see city lights below, nice firework-type streaks from the arc, and a slight doubling/tripling (not blurring, per se) of certain parts of the image, such as around the fellow's pants. The arc itself wasn't completely blown - it was reddish- or orangey-white. Unfortunately the catalog didn't specify whether this was shot with a digital or film SLR. It accompanied the section on their Speedlights and accessories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skipd Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 One other thing - REALLY IMPORTANT !!!!! Hot welding (or grinding) spatter really digs into glass, making a nasty pit in the glass. I wouldn't want to get a good lens near enough to have hot slag hit the lens itself. If you want to get close in, get a good clean piece of Plexiglas to shoot through. As strange as it seems, plastics are rather impervious to the hot spatter but glass, which is harder, is easily damaged by the spatter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twmeyer Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 a filter certainly would be easier to deal with... t Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twmeyer Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 This was shot several years ago with an Olympus E-10 (no sensor damage)...<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twmeyer Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 no plexiglass either. It was 1/5th sec at f8... t Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miles_feigenbaum___dallas_ Posted July 20, 2005 Author Share Posted July 20, 2005 Amigos, thank you all for the input. TIG (tungsten inert gas) doesn't produce the fireworks type of shooting pieces and such. The electrode is the size of a pencil lead made from tungsten and has an extremely small hot flame which fuses the two pieces together with the help of feeding some very small guage filler rod added to the molten puddle for very precise work, unlike something like stick or wire feed like in Toms photo, which is really a great shot. I also have a wire-feed (MIG) machine that we can experiment with too. Yes, the ambiant light at a slow shutter will be critical for the exposure. I want her to have something unique for her class... any other comments more than welcome. many thanks guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed_nazarko Posted July 23, 2005 Share Posted July 23, 2005 I like all the ideas you've gotten so far, but suppose you expose so that the TIG light DOESN'T blow out, or is only close to blowing out, meaning that only your hands and close areas of your face would show. Kill the ambient light, make everything else disappear. I love the chance to shoot that ultra-low-key kind of shot. Spot meter the face and take it down a half stop or full stop from that. You'll have hands, face, and welding flame afloat in a sea of darkness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miles_feigenbaum___dallas_ Posted July 24, 2005 Author Share Posted July 24, 2005 Howdy Ed, Thats why its nice to bounce these things off our photo.net brothers. I like the dramatic effect that can be obtained using your tips. I can turn all the lights off in my hanger and use just the arc for illumination. I really appreciate the input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_z2 Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 I'm not sure how these were achieved, but they look good. http://www.bo-marind.com More in their gallery. I'm not sure if this is Mig welding or Tig welding. -cz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noah_palmer Posted August 13, 2016 Share Posted August 13, 2016 <p>Your daughter is doing a good job.There are also many more welding technologies like Stick welding, Flux-core welding, Plasma cut welding,etc. For accurate welding, you can try Plasma cutters. In this welding process metals of various thicknesses are cutusing a plasma torch which provides precision cuts.<a href="http://www.atlanticprecision.com/">Why</a><a href="http://www.atlanticprecision.com/"> not look here</a> for plasma cutters.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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