Welding glass Photoraphy advice
Welding glass Photoraphy advice
Author
Discussion

mojitomax

Original Poster:

1,876 posts

221 months

Tuesday 27th March 2012
quotequote all
Following in from the excellent welding lass thread, I have a couple of questions.

1. What shade of glass should I use? I just had a mooch on eBay and there are lots of filters with different shades.

2. How does one calculate the exposure times? People are saying put it onto bulb mode and manually trigger the shutter which I can do but for how long?

Ta for the help

Gad-Westy

16,566 posts

242 months

Tuesday 27th March 2012
quotequote all
This is what I used to use.

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/...

It equates to about 10 stops. I also bought a screw in adaptor to suit my lens that I then glued the welding glass to. I found this a lot easier that messing around with rubber bands etc.

To calculate 10 stops:

You can do it in your head if you're feeling clever or if you have a smart phone, just download an app that will do it for you.

The general principal I used was to take a test shot until I was happy with the exposure, focus depth of field etc... So if I was happy with an exposure of 1/15 seconds, I'd pop the the welding glass on, taking care to not nudge the focus out. My longtime exposure app tells me that with a 10 stop filter fitted, I should use a 1 minute exposure. So I'd use bulb mode with a remote and time out a one minute exposure with my stop watch and hopefully the result will be lovely.

Always shoot raw. All welding glass gives some sort of colour cast and raw gives you by far the best chance of correcting it.

mojitomax

Original Poster:

1,876 posts

221 months

Tuesday 27th March 2012
quotequote all
That's great. Thanks for your help.

Which app do you use to calculate the exposure time?

Gad-Westy

16,566 posts

242 months

Tuesday 27th March 2012
quotequote all
mojitomax said:
That's great. Thanks for your help.

Which app do you use to calculate the exposure time?
Mine is an iphone app called longtime.

mojitomax

Original Poster:

1,876 posts

221 months

Tuesday 27th March 2012
quotequote all
Downloaded the app. Brill. Simple and effective!

Thanks

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

255 months

Thursday 29th March 2012
quotequote all
I too have been following the welding glass thread with interest.

However, I'm far too hamfisted for all that malarky, so I bought this instead:



It's a variable ND filter that allows +1 to +8 stops.

K12beano

20,854 posts

304 months

Thursday 29th March 2012
quotequote all
Ooo - how are you getting on with variable ND?

In other places these seem to get slated as next-to-useless.

mojitomax

Original Poster:

1,876 posts

221 months

Thursday 29th March 2012
quotequote all
I'm waiting for my welding glass and some step up rings. Blutak at the ready.