Breaking light bulbs

For some reason, I had an inclination to try to get some shots of light bulbs breaking using the sound trigger I had to fire the flashes. It took a total of sacrificing 10 bulbs this initial round, but I came up with these 2 as the best of the bunch. I just thought I'd share them for anyone interested.

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Cool shots! f/11.0 seems to work great. What did you use for light?

I have 6 burned out bulbs waiting to be broken. I haven't decided whether to drop them, shoot them with my pellet rifle or hit them with a hammer.

rrdjserv@earthlink.net wrote in post #9097596
Cool shots! f/11.0 seems to work great. What did you use for light?

I have 6 burned out bulbs waiting to be broken. I haven't decided whether to drop them, shoot them with my pellet rifle or hit them with a hammer.

I used 2 speedlights on 1/64 power for the lighting. One day I'll try the pellet gun approach on some things, but I'll probably need an assistant to help with that. I don't want the pellet gun itself setting off the trigger.

BTW, I got a 4 pack of basic bulbs at Lowe's for 78 cents. It was worth it to get a couple of packs. I may have to go buy some more when I want to play again. I've switched to compact fluorescent for most lamps in my house now. Those might be fun to shoot when they burn out.

I'm gonna have to try this out, very nifty idea!

Perhaps a shot where the bottom of the bulb is weighted so it lands first and the glass may shatter downward...

So exciting.

lavanut wrote in post #9097965
I used 2 speedlights on 1/64 power for the lighting. One day I'll try the pellet gun approach on some things, but I'll probably need an assistant to help with that. I don't want the pellet gun itself setting off the trigger.

BTW, I got a 4 pack of basic bulbs at Lowe's for 78 cents. It was worth it to get a couple of packs. I may have to go buy some more when I want to play again. I've switched to compact fluorescent for most lamps in my house now. Those might be fun to shoot when they burn out.

I have not read this whole thread yet but one thing you can try to experiment with instead of light bulbs are balloons. Shoot the balloons with the pellet gun and see what it's like. Then see what happens with water balloons. That sounds like soo much fun. After you get the technique down with the balloons, then you can finish off the light bulbs any way you want. Just my little thought.

ImEddy

The thought of the glass shards scratching my lens terrifies me...not touching this one.

xs5875 wrote in post #9232285
The thought of the glass shards scratching my lens terrifies me...not touching this one.

Filter? None of the shards would be heavy/fast enough to break through a filter I'd think, especially if it's a glass filter.

xs5875 wrote in post #9232285
The thought of the glass shards scratching my lens terrifies me...not touching this one.

Thanks for the concern, but my lens was fine. There was some dust stirred up, but a little cleaning and air blowing got rid of that. As firstclass said, the broken pieces weren't going fast enough to do damage, plus I was far enough away. I could have been further, but this was a test of the concept as much as anything else. I'd never really had a chance to test the sound activated flash trigger, so this was something to play with.

Balloons are next, and I will most likely be further away on those since that stuff will scatter more than the light bulbs.

I worked construction for years, and once worked a job where we were demolishing a building. It had overhead lightbulbs in sockets all down this long hallway. As we went out for the last time, I had a piece of lathe, a 1" wide by 3/8", by 4 feet or so and as I walked along, I just whacked those bulbs out.

You'd be surprised. I didn't get any glass on me and it was pretty interesting to do, cause the filiments were hot and when the glass broke, they flared up. Just saying.