Welding photography

Has anyone tried to photograph welding, either video or still? Would one just set it up to photograph through a regular hood?

Steve

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Reply to
Steve B
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I tried for a while using a variety of cameras. I found the biggest problem with video or using a digital still camera, was that the cameras were too damn smart. They keep trying to make pictures of children at a picnic, so when you throw a welding arc at them they just don't know what to do.

The solution is to go to a film camera and shoot through a welding hood, or use a really dumb digital camera with no auto anything. I suspect if you go to the high end of digital you can get there too.

I was unable to turn off all the auto features on my cameras. Auto-focus and auto-light-balancing were the worst culprits.

Auto-focus tries to focus on the welding lens not the weld, like trying to shoot a picture through a glass window. The camera will try to focus on the window.

Auto-light-balance thinks it is staring at the sun and goes haywire.

The industrial quality welding cameras, used for robotic welding cels, are very expensive. They call them "vision systems".

I tried one of our underwater cameras from school, and it was dumb enough to work through a welding hood, but unfortunately it has a permanent wide-angle infinite-focus lens so it can't see well that close.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

Ebay is filled with with Canon FTBs and other similar older SLRs that can be rigged by simply putting a welding lens across the front of the lens. Perhaps a Cokin Filter holder screwed to the front of the lens will give you a nice flat place to tape on the filter.

Those cameras cost at most...$20 plus shipping

Here are a few examples.....

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If you dont like Canon...Pentax/Mamiya/Konica/Minolta is also good...

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Etc etc etc.

Shoot as either prints or slide, have the film development place (most Walmarts, CNC pharmacies etc etc) scan rather than print and they will hand you a CD for less than $20 with a bunch of your computer ready pictures..A Bunch..... and all you need for film is Black and White, which you can certainly develope yourself very easily for little money.

Hell..Ebay has slide and negative scanners for damned damned little money....

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And so forth.

Its not rocket science, just a bit of common sense.

Gunner, one time very advanced "hobby" photographer

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. Gunner Asch

Reply to
Gunner Asch

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NICE!!

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Super!!

I used to be into black and white "model" photography. Had a Beseler 45 MCRX with a motorized carriage and six or eight Carl Zeiss lenses. It was a lot of fun. The photography wasn't bad either.

Steve

visit my blog at

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Reply to
Steve B

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> NICE!!

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> Super!!

That was a nice enlarger. Ive got a pair of Omega 4x5 enlargers out back. One with lens, one without. Both work well. Both have been collecting dust for humm..15-18 yrs.

Want em?

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. Gunner Asch

Reply to
Gunner Asch

My Dad's darkroom sink next to his enlarger spent the last ten years or so holding PCs and scanners instead of developer, stop, and fixer trays. In the summer it was one of the coolest rooms in the house (back basement corner). --Glenn Lyford

Reply to
Glenn Lyford

Id be happy to pass both of these very very nice enlargers on to someone for a couple 2 liter bottles of Diet Mt Dew. Chances are slim that Ill ever get back into a darkroom and Id rather like to see these go to a good home.

Omegha D models IRRC.

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. Gunner Asch

Reply to
Gunner Asch

Good luck. With digital photography and photoediting getting to what it is today, no one wants to take the time for chemical development any more.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

Not to mention I can't buy the button batteries that work the meter in my Nikormat, Pentax, and Rollie film cameras. Makes them way more work to use.

Reply to
RoyJ

What batteries? Ive yet to need an old cell I couldnt find.

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. Gunner Asch

Reply to
Gunner Asch

Some of the Mercury batteries are scarce or missing. There are some replacements now. I had a large one in a light meter. Sekonic (sp) but that one was stolen with my Gossen. SOB's got my professional set of Minolta's and 9 lenses. Now I have Nikon's and Sony's.

The Minolta's were toted around and took official stills for AFRS - known as AFRTS now - adding TV in the 'later years'. Armed Forces Radio Service.

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

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