Welding Photography?

[mike@af]

I wanted to take some pics of me welding, but I dont want to screw up my camera. I took some old pics of me TIG welding with my crappy cam, and the pics came alright except for the bad quality of the cam. TIG is 20 times brighter than the sun, and MIG is 10 times brighter than the sun. I wanted to take some pics of me MIG welding, with my Fujifilm Finepix 2600Z. Would it ruin the camera?

[Moppie]

How much manual control to you have?

And whats its minimum apatrue, and fastest shutter speed?
And how well lit is were you will be welding?

[zzpza]

i've taken pix of arc welding before and that's not too dificult. just remember not to get too close and don't look throught the view finder without proper eye protection when taking the pix. the way i did it was to compose the shot using a tripod and then look the other way when they were welding and use a remote release to fire the camera. i was using center weighted averaging metering with no exposure correction.

if you have access to a computer there, have a look at them once you've taken a few to see how things are going so you can make any adjustments to the camera whilst you still have the oppertunity to take somemore.

as i'm sure you know, the last thing you want to do is look at the spark with the naked eye. remember - safety first!

j.

[mike@af]

Originally Posted by Moppie

How much manual control to you have?

And whats its minimum apatrue, and fastest shutter speed?
And how well lit is were you will be welding?

Theres not a lot of manual control, I dont really know exactly what off hand. I cant seem to control the shutter speed. Its pretty well lit, I've got light from the flourescents in the shop, and day light when the bays are open.

Im mainly worried about damaging the "eye" or whatever the hell its called.

[Moppie]

Well if you can control the shutter set it to its fastest setting, that should let you capture sparks in mid flight.
See if it has a sport setting, or something else that might suggest it uses a faster shutter.

To stop glare from the sparks you should also try and use a small apature, but you will need more manual control than your camera possibel offers.


So, just set up and shoot away, use all the differnt shooting modes, and try with and with out flash.
You certianly won't damage the sensor, unless you leave it aimed at the welder while you weld for several hours.

[zzpza]

Originally Posted by GTmike400

I wanted to take some pics of me welding...

so, how did it go? get any good pix?

j.