Today Boys and Girls  we're going to shoot a burning out lightbulb just like the Red Mushroom shot below.

Before we begin Remember Be Careful, don't touch the bulb while it is plugged in or switched on as you do risk getting electrocuted !!! also by breaking the bulb there will be shards of broken glass to deal with.

1) - Setup your camera and lamp in the position you want your shot.
2) - Put an unbroken bulb in the lamp and switch it on.
3) - Meter the shot with only the light bulb switched on - no other light.
4) - Take a test shot to verify no llght patches appear in the background.
5) - Put the room light back on and unplug the lamp to let the lightbulb cool.
6) - Place the lightbulb in a clear plastic bag .
7) The tricky bit, hit bulb with hammer ! no not your finger ; )
The best way I have found is to hold the bulb connector in with the bulb end down in the plastic bag, put the bulb against the wall and hit softly till bulb breaks.
8) Carefully remove the bulb from the bag, if the filament is broken toss it in the bin and go back to step 6.
9) - Once you have a smashed bulb with the filament intact put it back in the lamp MAKE SURE FIRST THAT IT IS UNPLUGGED !!!
10) - This is when you realise you should have set up so you can switch the lamp on while having your finger on the camera button; )
11) - With your finger on the camera button turn the lamp on and simultaneously press the button to fire the shutter.
12) - UNPLUG THE LAMP BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE

You should now have a photo of the bulb burning out . Hmm, your picture colour though : ( How did that happen ?
What I have done to overcome this and also to achieve a higher shutter speed is to use off camera flash. You will notice at the left hand side of the setup shot that I have my flash with a green thing on the front. In order to colour the flash I'm sure some of you more professional guys will use a snoot with some coloured gels, I didn't have this so I cut up a couple of drinking straws glued them together and held them to the front of my flash with a small bit of tape. The resulting flash will have a coloured hue to it that will put a colour cast onto the smoke and lamp fitting. A couple of small points, I used black paper for the background behind the bulb, and the best exposure settings I have found so far are 1/125th at f22 at iso100 (Bearing in mind that is with flash on 1/2 power).

I hope this helps out and have fun guys and remember to be safe !!!

 The finished article