Another Attempt at Christmas Lights

No mask used on this shot.

Well, I was fiddling with my camera last night, trying to get those wonderful bokeh light shots and I'm getting closer.  You can read about my first attempt and find the link to the information I had read to learn how to take these shots here.

I also got a couple of interesting shots along the way, that although they weren't what I was going for, I thought they were interesting.

I wasn't using a tripod since I was in the house and just wanted to do some quick experimenting.  Instead, I put the camera on various surfaces in the family room where the Christmas tree is.  The blurry shots are because I was resting the camera on a surface but tilting it up a bit for some of the shots and obviously I'm not as steady as I'd like to think I am. ;o)

The information I read said to make the hole in the mask quite small, yet my most successful shots were made without a mask or with the little shaped holes left out of the mask holder so that I was shooting through the rectangular hole.

I did learn that for some reason the cut out shape I was using ends up upside down and backwards from what I expected.

Upside down trains are out of focus.

Mask with no little shape cutouts put it.

 

No mask used.

My unsteadiness created these
interesting light icicles.

Pretty shot, but no bokeh at all...

 

Happy accident.  Not sure how I got this, but I like it!

These last two shots were taken using the little masks, but the resulting lights are so small and the overall image is dark.  Obviously I need to keep working at this...

Upside down and backwards musical notes.