Broken Light Bulbs

Scottie68

Scottie68

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Scott
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I thought i would give the broken light bulb a try. These are probably the best out of the set

If you ever want to try this, make sure you buy very cheap light bulbs (pack of 3 in the pound shop). Even though i was very careful breaking the glass, my success rate was probably 1 in 3 as the glass also breaks the elements :razz:


Light Mushroom by surfinscottie, on Flickr


Lights Out by surfinscottie, on Flickr


To The Right by surfinscottie, on Flickr


Broken Light by surfinscottie, on Flickr


Light Bow by surfinscottie, on Flickr


Blue Light Mushroom by surfinscottie, on Flickr
 
mattd85 said:
Wow they're really good, care to share your set up
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Thanks Matt, Simon & Matt (y)

First of all you need to break the light bulb. I held the bulb in a bag and gently hit the bulb with a hammer. As mentioned above, my success rate was about 1 in 3, hence buy cheap bulbs! There is another way and that's with an adjustable wrench and snap the glass at the smallest point. I believe the success rate would be a lot better than the hammer!

Once you've broken the bulb, it's a matter of choice to either clean off all the remaining glass or leave the bulb in the exact same state as first broken. If the filaments have moved, move them back in place so they are symmetrical.

I setup an old lamp stand approximately 12" in front of some black card. Attach the broken bulb, but make sure it's not plugged in! I then set the focus to manual and focused on the filaments. I used a number of various settings between f4 & f8 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/800. Set the camera to continuous shooting. No flash was used in any of these, but a couple of them I did back light the bulb but it didn't really make much difference. If anything, it gave me more pp work to do! The room also doesn't need to be pitch black, I did all of mine with natural light coming through the window!

So here goes .... Try and use a remote if you can as you have to start snapping about a second before plugging in the lamp. You literally get a couple of seconds before the bulb burns out. Hopefully this will give you about 6 shots to choose from.

Good luck and if you try this out, please post your results, look forward to seeing them (y)
 
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Love these shots....seen this done before and wanted to have a go. After looking at your shots I may well have a go this week.
 
Thanks Phil ... if you get a chance to have a go, would like to see the outcome (y)
 
Ooooh boy...I have GOT to have me a go at this!

Thanks for sharing your method Scott.
The images are great!!
 
Excellent results from these shots. Like the ones with Glass intact, especially #4Something I will have a go of myself too.


I Must stress that the utmost in care must be taken by everyone trying this. You're dealing with a live electrical current at close quarters.

Don't get close and ensure no one else is in the vicinity.
 
Thanks all (y)

Paul, there is really no need for a circuit breaker, it wont blow the fuses, just the bulb blows!

Simon, i used LR4 and PS5 for the processing. All i do is tweet the blacks and the levels and then apply some light sharpening. To get the different colours i also adjust the hue and saturation in either LR4 or PS5
 
Really like these; have often wondered how they might be achieved. Suddenly see a wet day / indoor project making its way to the top of my avoid DIY list.
 
TheBiscuitMafia said:
Thank you scott. You've been kind in sharing how to get photos like the ones you have. I will have a goo at this on the weekend :)
Simon
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My pleasure Simon and thank you for saying so. This is what Talk Photography is all about, sharing and helping others. Im not qualified by far to teach anyone anything, but I'm more than happy to share the little i do know. Ive learnt so much from other members since I've joined this forum, but i don't think with photography you ever stop learning and this is the best place to be for that (y)

Spooky said:
Really like these; have often wondered how they might be achieved. Suddenly see a wet day / indoor project making its way to the top of my avoid DIY list.
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Thank you Simon, but these wet days are happening far too often for my liking :nono:
 
Love the shots and thanks for sharing your set-up details, it doesn't sound too difficult and seems it can be done with minimal equipment (something that holds me back a lot).

If I can get half the quality of your shots I think I would be happy so look forward to trying.
 
Thanks for all you kind comments (y)

Looking forward to seeing all your examples
 
These are great Scott, I've been looking for something to try this weekend (as it looks like it's gonna be a washout again :()

Thanks for sharing the technique (y)
 
Would a dremel not cut the bulb better?

Great shots.
 
Awesome work!! I want to try this one day!
I have a question on doing this, obviously the bulb would be in the lamp at the time of shooting, in your pics the bulb doesn't look like its in the lamp (bottom bit of the bulb where it screws in). I'm guessing in pp but I'm not a pro in pp so could you explain this for me please thanks :)
 
Mmarques said:
Awesome work!! I want to try this one day!
I have a question on doing this, obviously the bulb would be in the lamp at the time of shooting, in your pics the bulb doesn't look like its in the lamp (bottom bit of the bulb where it screws in). I'm guessing in pp but I'm not a pro in pp so could you explain this for me please thanks :)
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Thanks once again for all your kind comments, very much appreciated as always (y)

Marco, the bottom of the bulb was added in PS5 as you correctly guessed. I have seen some shots before where people solder wires to the connections so you see the whole bulb, but that seems a bit too much for me to attempt and also looks a tad dangerous! This way is vertually fool proof! :thinking:
 
Great shots! I'm wishing i'd seen this earlier, when i was faced with a rainy morning with no children lol. Heres hoping it rains next friday too!
 
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