Glow for a light source

It's been surprisingly difficult to get a good glow effect for a simple light (an old-fashioned gas light, similar in appearance to an electric light bulb). The built-in glow effect for Unity 5 lights is beautiful, but it extends over the entire area that the light covers, which makes it far too large in this case. Adding a second smaller light just to get a smaller glow effect is going to be too expensive, A billboard using the flare shader comes close to the right effect, but it seems like there should be a simpler solution. What do other people use?

 

Can you illustrate the problem with a screenshot?
What do you mean by built-in glow? Do you mean the "Draw Halo" or an image effect?

 

I mean the "Draw Halo" option in the light settings. I can make a screenshot if you want when I have time. I just assumed that other people must have a standard way of producing this type of effect.

 

Couldn't you just use the halo component? It gives you slightly more options such as size.

 

I didn't realize there was a separate component like that. The resize option is what I needed, although it's not as bright as the billboard I was using. I can probably find some combination of settings that will work.

 

What I prefer is to add an emissive object which represents the light source. Then I would add bloom or glow image effects. This is of course not suitable for all situations.