Portrait pictures: The prism

Whenever I mention the word “prism”, people think about science. Today, I’ll be talking about using a prism in photography. Some people might think of it as a difficult thing to do but all it takes is practice and a bit of messing around. To me, prisms are probably one of the easiest tools to use in photography. You don’t need to adjust your settings a lot and you don’t need a specific type of lighting when using a prism. For example, like when using a fairy light, you need to use them in a low-light area. For prism, as long as you have a light that can bounce off the prism, you’re good. It doesn’t matter if you’re indoors or outdoors.

What you’ll need:

A 6” prism. (make sure it’s longer than your lens)
A 50mm lens

When using a prism, you need to make sure that the prism is longer than the lens. A long prism is good because you can easily hold onto the prism and move it around with ease. Prisms are better used outside but as mentioned before, you can use them indoors as well. Using the prism outside is highly recommended because the sunlight can hit the prism easily and you’ll end up with good results. You’ll sometimes end up with different types of effects. There are some pictures that’ll have a rainbow effect or just a reflective effect. If you don’t end up with any effects, try to move the prism around the lens until you get the results you want. Sometimes you just need to move around so the sunlight can hit the prism perfectly.

You can easily get your hands on a prism. There are some on Amazon that’s cheap. If you don’t want to spend money on a prism, you can use a glass award. You just need to make sure there aren’t a lot of writing on it and that it’s longer than the lens. You always need to make sure that the prism is longer than the lens or else you’ll get a very awkward effect on your pictures.

Some people even use cd’s to get the same effect as the prism. All you have to do is angle the cd to where the light will hit it and it’ll bounce off the cd and onto the lens. You’ll sometimes get a rainbow effect or a glare. Pictures with glares can be very beautiful once you edit them.