Use Welding Glass As 10 Stops ND Filter
Neutral density filter reduces the amount of light going into the lens, so you can take long exposures even when the light is bright.
Long exposures blur anything moving, like water, clouds, or people. This can be very useful for making choppy water look smooth, making clouds streak, or getting rid of people at a tourist attraction.
These types of filters usually cost up to $200 (especially on big diameter lenses), but with this simple hack, you can make it for only $5.
Materials
- Welding Glass - The welding glass can be purchased online or at any welding supply store. The welding glass that I got was a #12 grade. Most pieces of welding glass are tinted a color, mine is green, and I will explain later in the article about how to get rid of that horrible tint.
- 3 rubber bands- I used the thick blue rubber bands from produce
- Piece of cloth- a good size thick cloth, at least 16”x16”, depending on your camera/lens setup
- Shutter release with bulb mode
- Tripod
- LED Flashlight
Instructions:
1. Find a scene with movement in it, like water, clouds, or people.
2. Set your camera up on your tripod and compose your shot now, because once your put on the welding glass, you will not be able to see out of your viewfinder.
3.Set the camera to bulb mode, and set your f/stop to 8 or above for a good DOF. My welding glass is grade #12, so I usually have to take a 5-6 minute exposure at f/8, iso 100. ALWAYS SHOOT IN RAW FOR THIS.
4. Put rubber bands around two sides of the welding glass, parallel to each other.
5. Take your lens hood, put it on the lens backwards, and pull the rubber bands around the lens hood.
6. Take your piece of cloth, and drape it over your camera, lens, and the corners of the welder’s glass, to prevent light from leaking in through the crack in between your lens and the glass. Then stretch your other rubber band over the glass so that it wraps around the lens hood and cloth. This creates a hood, like what you see on really old cameras.
7. Take the picture, using the bulb switch on your shutter release, and use a stopwatch if you have one to keep track of the time. The picture that will appear on your screen after you take it will be slightly color tinted (mine is green), and you will have to do some major white balance correction to fix it. Don’t worry, it will turn out normal color in the end.
Post Processing:
To remove the tint made by the welding glass, you can either do basic white balance correction, turn it into black and white, or shoot in RAW mode, and do some extra steps below before using Photoshop or Lightroom.
Pre-editing and Editing:
Put your camera on a tripod and tilt it all the way backwards until your camera is facing the ceiling or sky.
Take the flashlight, turn it on, and set it down on the filter, so that it is looking at the LED.
Take a picture on P mode in raw.
Set that picture you took to your custom white balance.
Take another picture with the LED still on top of it. This picture should look like it’s in black and white.
Put the white balance corrected picture (one that looked black and white on your camera) on your computer and convert it into a DNG using Adobe’s DNG converter. It’s a free Adobe download program for Mac and PC.
Open your new .dng into Adobe DNG Profile Editor (another free program, but you have to make a free account with Adobe).
In the editor play around with the white balance until you get a color tone you want, then name it and export it to the preset folder (the picture on the side might not look corrected, but it will be in the end).
Load the picture you originally took of your scene into Lightroom. Scroll down to camera calibration in Develop mode, click on the profile drop down menu, and select your saved profile (mine was named no green hue).
The picture will still look bad at this point, so go back up to the top and turn the tint to +150 (for green filter, for other color filters you may have to experiment a little).
11. Your picture should now look like it was taken right out of your lens. You may also want to do some work to reduce the vignetting that you may get.
Major white balance correction:
Basic white balance correction
Black and white
About The Author
This post is by Aaron Czeszynski, you can see more of his work in his Flickr stream.
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Comments
I suppose that cutting the
I suppose that cutting the welding lass and fit it in a cokin filter harness will not do the trick because of stray light issues from the gap between filter and lens, am I right? did anyone try?
interesting, I'd like to know
interesting, I'd like to know the answer to this too.
Welding glass and cokin filters
Hi XVIIarcano, here is a post how I used some of the thin welding glass lenses and how I made them fit a cokin holder http://www.zigannyphotography.com/blog/?p=1591. to prevent light getting in the sides I use a black cloth drapped over the lens.
Here is a picture captured using this filter
Hi, one and all, here is an example of an image I captured using the DIY ND (welding glass) filter http://www.zigannyphotography.com/blog/?p=2027
Cokin filter holder
I tried this with the Cokin holder (it fits) and got horrific light leaks. Tried sealing it with sponge then but found in sunlight I got nothing but reflections of the lens innards.
Question
I wonder what would happen if you used this technique with the filters that screw on to the front of your lens for making IR photos?
No Lightroom
I don't have Lightroom....can I still do this?
Color Correction
It is far easier to do a custom white balance in the field than to do it in post. There will be a major introduction of noise in post because of how much of a change happens in the WB. The other thing that will happen is that your WB will be very purple. I have accidentally left the WB set this way and shot a couple of frames. The purple WB results are quite impressive with night shots.
I haven't tried to set the WB in post too many times because of the noise issue. Occasionally I forgot to set it in cam and when I tried to make adjustments in Lightroom to get the WB correct it just doesnt work out for me.
I would suggest using something white in ambient light to get the best base white balance. LED lights won't necessarily match the color temperature of what is around you. This will remove the need for all the crazy DNG steps.
Welding Glass
Just to let everyone know, you can find the welding glass at Lowes and Ace Hardware for around $5.
Great post
Very nice trick you have there:) Thanks for sharing, I really loved the tips on postp!
Welding Glass Reply
@XVIIARCANO you could glue it to an old filter ring, and it will get rid of the light leaks
@JRDNJSTN Yes i beleve there is a way in photoshop to do it
Use shade 9, not 12.
Shade 9 glass works out closer to 10 stops (11ish of the top of my head) which gives reasonable exposure times. I have shade 11 which works out at 16 1/3(!) stops and in anything but perfect light your into minute exposures every quickly which is often execessive.
I am finding getting rid of the green cast to be the hardest part, after applying an extreme WB and tint change I still have a subtle yellow/green cast I can't get rid of, but I haven't tried boosting the red and blue saturations so will do later.
I do think you could do all the above in LR/Camera raw and save a preset and skip the DNG bit.
DIY Variable ND filter using two Polarizing filters..
Here is a diy to make a 4 stop to 11 stop variable ND filter.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Variable-Neutral-Density-Filter/
This would be more practical than dealing with extreme WB.
Welding Glass as ND filter - post processing
@Jrdnjstn.
Try Raw Therapee here...
< http://www.photo-freeware.net/raw-therapee.php >
I believe Raw Therapee was purchased by Adobe and used to form the basis of Lightroom. It's a very good and stable program
You can also set the WB by
You can also set the WB by taking a photo with the glass on it of something white.
I've done this same trick in
I've done this same trick in the city to make it look like there aren't any people.
The catch
The only thing I have against using linear filters like a peice of welding glass, is that it leaves an awful crosshatched pattern when you're editing and printing large. There's also the hassle of keeping them clean and scratch free... If you google ND filters, I've seen ND8's and 4's for as low as 10 bucks online. Sure as hell beats using rubber bands, not that that won't work too. In my experience, you'll get higher quality images with circular filters.
Can I do this in Aperture?
Hi, I would love to try this, but is it a way for me to get the same stuff done in my Aperture?
Welding glass
This is an excellent idea!
FlickR group for the welding glass
solar filters
The astronomy community has a variety of similar filter ideas for viewing the Sun. Cheap filters can be made with stuff you can get with a Google search of "solar filter film". Frankly, it never occured to me to take a long exposure through a filter that only lets through one photon per 100,000. I'm trying to jam photons into the camera (which is often a Mark I eyeball). That's why i use a 250 mm (diameter) F5 lens (which i call a telescope).
software
It seems more than likely that you'd be able to use the Gimp, instead of photoshop. The Gimp is cheaper - it's free.
ND Filter
Just how much do you think this will save you over the cost of a 10 stop ND Filter? It seems an awful lot of work particulaly post editting just to save a few quid.
A decent amount since the ND
A decent amount since the ND 10 I want is $120 and the welders glass cost me $7. Post processing doens't take that much time, maybe 10-20 min on an image. Well worth the cost savings. Besides doing it with the welders glass makes it more fun :)
I bought an ND2, ND4 and ND8
I bought an ND2, ND4 and ND8 which can be coupled for $10 total. I will happily put these up against the welding glass and see which is best in terms of time (pre and post) and quality. Whilst I appreciate this is at the lower end of ND filters, $120 is too much and if you are considering this as an alternative I say buy the $10 kit and see how it works for you.
Well I am very happy with the
Well I am very happy with the results I have gotten with my Welders glass so no need to compete. That's the beauty of art, to each their own :) http://www.cjschmit.com/p897987490/h2363271
I have been doing this
I have been doing this welding glass filter for a few months now and I agree with Vincent Muccioli that setting the custom white balance in the field makes things a bit easier. I have not used a cloth on any of my shots but also haven't really experienced any light leaks either. I might try it some time just to see if I see any difference. All of my photos are in the Flickr group and currently my latest one is showing up here on the site from the Flickr group called "Mystify". I agree a real ND filter will give you better photos but the point here is saving some $$ and having fun doing something not everyone might try. As for sharp images, I like the noise and stuff the glass adds, gives the photos a different feel :)
I tried using the welding
I tried using the welding glass but I have a problem it reflects :( I can't figure out what to do. please help me
what do you mean by reflect?
what do you mean by reflect?
Probably not snug up against
Probably not snug up against the lens. Light will sneak in and reflect your lens back onto the weldiing glass then back to the camera...It has to be snug against the lens, hince the rubber bands.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/borisgeorgiev/
This is my welding glass as filter:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/borisgeorgiev/5958645397/
and this is the result:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/borisgeorgiev/5959204468/
Thats a good DIY idea
Just a comment, remember to cover the eyepiece as well when shooting long exposures, THAT might be where some peoples 'stray light' reflections are coming from.
Gonna try this myself too, thanks for the good idea
white balance work-around
For the last few hours I've been struggling with geting the white balance to look correct in my images. I tried following the white balance correction tutorial on this page and had no luck. So if you're like me and haven't had any luck here is a work-around.
After you import your images into lightroom. Under the develop tab navigate to the drop down menu called camera calibration. From here, use the camera profile called, camera portrait. (I seemed to have the best luck using this profile.) After you have selected the correct profile adjust the settings as follows:
(Shadows) Tint: 0
(Red Primary) Hue:+100 Saturation:+100
(Green Primary) Hue:+100 Saturation: -100
(Blue Primary) Hue: -100 Saturation: -100
If you did everything correct your image should not be showing the green hue. From here you should be able to make the final adjustments and call this image finished.
Cheers!
gradients?
This sounds awesome and I'm about to go out and buy some welding glass as we speak but do you know of any way to make a diy hard grad nd?
HELP, that options which are
HELP, that options which are shown in the post, doesnt work for me. Maybe someone can upload to zippyshare or somewhere else your .dcp file?
Variable ND Filter
Why don't you use a Variable ND Filter?
1) http://vimeo.com/15313082
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Z7l-p2RR0
Solar Eclipse
Could welding glass be used to protect my video camera to film the upcoming eclipse?
Welding glass
I found an old pair of welding glasses in a drawer in my basement yesterday. 2 perfectly cut filters. Its all falling together perfectly.
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