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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Any tips on shooting welding? Suddenly have a Scarlet shoot tomorrow

Ben Scott

Ben Scott

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Hi all,

Out of the blue i have my first proper Scarlet-X (Canon mount) shoot tomorrow where I will be in a a workshop shooting the welding of a frame to be used for an upcoming big event in the UK.

I'm going to have a 60D in the corner shooting a long timelapse of the whole day, probably on a Tokina 11-16mm, and then I'll have the Scarlet there for shooting video.

Won't be able to light it and also really won't have any time to test before the events I am capturing start off so I was looking for thoughts on how people have dealt with those shoots in the past. Will have a 25mm and 50mm Zeiss ZF, plus a slow (f3.5) 35-105mm Nikon AI manual zoom.

I'm thinking

some 4k @ 25fps general working on the frame
some 3k @ 48fps closer on the welding and sparks
some 2k @ 60fps on the sparks hitting the floor etc

Does anyone have experience of this sort of stuff? Would you expose purely for the sparks and let that illuminate anything else? Or would you expose for the people working on it and let the sparks be even hotter .



Any tips, advice or examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance :)
 
It really depends on the look you are going for. If you would like to Expose for the bead and get close you are going to need to rig welding glass from a welding hood on to you matt box and and have a lens that allows you to get and ECU other than that you would do well to shoo the welding in a very bright environment and stock up on ND's. This will reduce the latitude a little bit which will help you. remember to protect you camera.
good luck.
 
Sorry, it was a quick forum search for "welding". There have been several recent related threads.

Good luck. Let us know how you manage UV with multiple NDs and welding, and how it works for you.
 
Ah gotcha. Not seen anything like that in the sub-forum. I have absolutely no idea what to expect tomorrow and it was all very last minuteso to be able to get anything will be a bonus :)
 
Ben,

I didn't mean any real rigging just using some welding glass ( which will be available anywhere that someone is welding) in place of an ND. welding is about as bright as the sun but you are a lot closer so try to think of it in terms of pointing the lens directly into the sun. This should put things in to context. Just my two sense :-)
 
Highly suggest an environental enclosure of some kind to keep grit and welding gasses out of the large vents in the camera!...
also heat may be issue..... but no one will care about camera noise... would a telephoto lens be useful to you?
perhaps a large fishtank would be usefull to you??
 
Well the shoot went well, except I appear to have a side handle where the battery won't stay in. :mad5:

Used no NDs or filtration in the end as there simply wasn't time when following people about. Haven't made a clip of the welding 'proper' yet but here's one of lots of slomo sparks, and another of the 4k stuff - both exported as 1080p.


Clip 1 - Password: weldy

2k 60fps 1/120 with Zeiss ZF 50mm f1.4




Clip 2 - Password: weldy

4k 25fps 1/50 with Zeiss ZF 25mm f2.8

 
Looks like it came out OK. You avoided the brightest part of the scene, which may have worked in your favor, but it may also be some of the most visually interesting parts of the shot. Do you have some with the flame tip and hot metal in frame?
 
Cheers Scott

One more clip - this one a lot hotter. I like the final bit where it's still bright but there's other stuff shooting off and smoking that aren't blown out.

3k 48fps 1/96 shutter. With Zeiss 50mm I think.


Password weldy
 
I recently shot in a car shop with grinders/people welding on car parts. I used a Junior as a 3/4 rim to separate them from otherwise dark room. I underexposed their faces dramatically and exposed for the residual light that fell off of the sparks/welder. I was pretty happy with it -- obviously would have wanted to light the room, but we were given limited permission for lighting. My junior was not always welcome, but I used it whenever I could. :) I shot an Epic at 300fps and a Red One at 120/24 fps at certain moments.

I've used Twixtor to speed ramp the sparks and it works quite nicely, so keep that in mind as well.
 
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