Lighting the tree

Yesterday I was given a rather unusual present - well it wasn't really for me, it was for the Christmas tree.
Chinese technology is so much fun and so inexpensive! This gadget that is giving me so much pleasure is a little electronic box that directs a laser light show on to hard surfaces. The colours thrown are the colours of Christmas - red, green and yellow so we set it up to hit the Christmas tree. This is how it looks

camera details       3sec        f/7.1      ISO 200       26mm

Once I had started to use the camera I wanted more pictures so I moved in a little closer. With a slow shutter speed I expected to get a lot of blur from the moving lights so I was a little surprised at how sharp they turned out.

camera details       1.6 sec       f/7.1      ISO 200       55mm

A big fad at the moment is to capture "bokeh". Bokeh is the name given to the radically out of focus effect on lights. This effect is best when there is something in the foreground that is in focus and the pattern of lights are behind.

camera details       2 sec       f/7.1      ISO 200       50mm

And one more bokeh shot of the lights

camera details       2 sec       f/7.1      ISO 200       55mm

The laser light cannot be left on all day, the recommendation is to turn the thing off after a couple of hours to allow it to cool down. So most of the time we shall be illuminating the tree with the regular tree lights and when we have visitors we shall turn on the special effects!
AJ