What do you use for bokeh ights?

[slackercruster]

Saw some portrait pix where they used some lights that came out as little colored circles in the bokeh. Are they xmas light type of things? These were all one color...yellow.

Thanks

[Ads]

[Dao]

I believe it is all comes down to, size of the light source, how far away the light source is and how shallow the DoF is.

[slackercruster]

Yes, I understand. But what sort of lights do you get for this in a studio setup?

[Dao]

I believe if you have a big studio, you can use a larger light source, if you have a small studio, use a smaller light source. For sure, the x'mas type light works.

I never did that before but here is what I think. It could be better if the background light is further away from the subject. so that the studio light will not affect the background lights unless you find a way to block the studio lights. (A black panels to block light or a light modifier that do not spill light to the background) Of course, I could be wrong.

[MTVision]

Yes, I understand. But what sort of lights do you get for this in a studio setup?

Christmas lights work good

[o hey tyler]

Non-LED Christmas lights

[slackercruster]

Why non LED?

If so, I'd better get some this xmas as the old bulbs are being phased out. (I think?)

[o hey tyler]

Why non LED?

If so, I'd better get some this xmas as the old bulbs are being phased out. (I think?)

Because they flicker and they won't appear to be on if your shutter speed is to fast.

[480sparky]

It also may be created by using a 'filter' on the front end of the lens.

Here's how.

[MTVision]

For the lights in the background did you mean something similar to this



Its not a very good setup with the lights but these are regular x-mas lights. You can usually find the netted lights - I think that's what they are called. People use them to drape over bushes outside. They work really good because you can just drape it over your backdrop and you don't have to mess around with taping/tacking a single row of lights up so they aren't all bunched together (like in my picture).

You can create a filter for the front of your lens and change the shape of the lights in the background to whatever you want - heart, star, etc.

[slackercruster]

For the lights in the background did you mean something similar to this



Its not a very good setup with the lights but these are regular x-mas lights. You can usually find the netted lights - I think that's what they are called. People use them to drape over bushes outside. They work really good because you can just drape it over your backdrop and you don't have to mess around with taping/tacking a single row of lights up so they aren't all bunched together (like in my picture).

You can create a filter for the front of your lens and change the shape of the lights in the background to whatever you want - heart, star, etc.

Yea Megan, exactly. Just colored more.

Thanks!

[slackercruster]

It also may be created by using a 'filter' on the front end of the lens.

Here's how.

Nice!!

[Solarflare]

It also may be created by using a 'filter' on the front end of the lens.

Here's how.

Judging from reading the comments there you have to have a long lens ? Above the normal lens ? And a large aperture ? To make this work ?

[Andretoo]

very useful,thanks

[Derrel]

Mini Christmas lights. The key to good color is to set the camera's white balance to Incandescent, so that the bulbs look the right color. Then, gel the light on the subject so that "white" light is shifted toward the orange.

This was done with a 200mm lens, set to f/2.8 using one Vivitar 285 flash fitted with an orange gel taped over the flash face, and fired into about 40 inch umbrella. I hung around seven strands of mini-lights off of a boom stand arm, in front of the gold-colored curtains in the living room in the background on the right hand side. In the background, camera left, was a small, 3.5 foot tall mini Christmas tree with small lights on it. To make the lights appear bright enough, I needed to use a rather slow shutter speed (1/20th second) AND a wide lens aperture AND a smidgeon of ISO boost. Because the shutter speeds were rather slow, and the lens aperture was quite wide, the flash power had to be turned wayyyyyy down, to 1/8 power as I recall. I shot with VR enabled to keep the camera steady while hand-holding it.