Why do some spotlights show a thin blue ring at the edge of the beam?
Asked 11/29/2021
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I’ve noticed some spotlight-style lights in photos where the edge of the projected circle has a thin blue ring. Is that a specific type of spotlight, or is the blue edge caused by the optics or setup?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
4y ago
2 Answers
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The thin blue ring along the edge is very likely an optical aberration of the spot's front lens.These lenses are designed to be cheap, withstand the heat, and do a reasonable job of making light rays parallel, not to be optically accurate (especially if slightly de-focused since the light beam is likely conical here).
Originally by user75947. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user75947
4y ago
0
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It’s usually just a standard spotlight, not a special model with a built-in blue edge. The thin blue ring is most likely caused by chromatic aberration and other lens imperfections in the spotlight’s front optics.
A spotlight lens is meant to collimate the lamp’s light into a more controlled beam, but simple, heat-resistant lenses used in many spotlights are not perfectly corrected. As a result, different wavelengths of light can bend slightly differently, producing a colored edge—often blue—around the beam. The effect can vary depending on focus, beam width, distance to the subject, and the light’s aperture/iris settings.
So the blue ring is generally an optical artifact of the spotlight lens rather than the name of a particular light type.
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