SHAPED BOKEH
lights turned into hearts
Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Bokeh describes the appearance, or "feel," of out-of-focus areas. Bokeh is not how far something is out-of-focus, bokeh is the character of whatever blur is there.
You need three things to shoot bokeh: pin point highlights, a large aperture and a short focal distance. When I say pin point highlights I mean small light sources.
Look for points of light in the background. Perfect subjects for this are distant points of light at night, Christmas lights, light shining through leaves or specular reflections in daylight. If they all blend together nicely, that's nice bokeh. If they are perfect little circles, then that's neutral bokeh. If they are all swimmy and look little donuts, then that's bad bokeh. If they all are regular polygons that tells you the shape of the lens diaphragm. Yes, you can actually tell how many blades the lens's diaphragm had!
You'll need:
•A camera with a large aperture lens
•Cardstock, or other thick paper
•Scissors, scalpel, exacto knife or some kind of shape punch
•Tape
1. Cut out a circle the size of your lens.
2. Cut out your desired shape on the middle of the circle, don't make it too big.
3. Tape it to your lens, either inside, over or on the outside ( see photo's)
You need three things to shoot bokeh: pin point highlights, a large aperture and a short focal distance. When I say pin point highlights I mean small light sources.
Look for points of light in the background. Perfect subjects for this are distant points of light at night, Christmas lights, light shining through leaves or specular reflections in daylight. If they all blend together nicely, that's nice bokeh. If they are perfect little circles, then that's neutral bokeh. If they are all swimmy and look little donuts, then that's bad bokeh. If they all are regular polygons that tells you the shape of the lens diaphragm. Yes, you can actually tell how many blades the lens's diaphragm had!
You'll need:
•A camera with a large aperture lens
•Cardstock, or other thick paper
•Scissors, scalpel, exacto knife or some kind of shape punch
•Tape
1. Cut out a circle the size of your lens.
2. Cut out your desired shape on the middle of the circle, don't make it too big.
3. Tape it to your lens, either inside, over or on the outside ( see photo's)
Taking Bokeh images is not difficult, but like anything it requires a bit of "playing around". Each camera and lens will have settings that work the best for that combination. The challenge is to take the theory and make it work for your set up.
1) Look for points of light in the background. Perfect subjects for this are distant points of light at night, Christmas lights, light shining through leaves or specular reflections in daylight. If they all blend together nicely, that's nice bokeh. If they are perfect little circles, then that's neutral bokeh. If they are all swimmy and look little donuts, then that's bad bokeh.
2) You want the largest aperture your lens can achieve ( smallest f # ie f1.4- f4) The reason that you want the largest possible aperture your lens is capable of is to ensure that your bokeh is round and not faceted. If they are perfectly round in the middle of the image and oval or lentil shaped at the sides that tells you the image was probably shot at full aperture. If they are faceted your lens was not wide open, what you are seeing is the blades of the lens.
3) The idea is to get as much distance between the subject and the bokeh producing highlights. Also, the closer you are focused to the camera the shorter the depth of field (DOF) will be. This ensures those lights way off in the background will be nice and blurred out
The focal length of the lens is also a consideration. Depth of field is basically a function of focal length, distance to subject and aperture. At a given aperture and distance longer focal lengths result in shorter DOF. A short DOF is what we need to effectively blur the background highlights to produce bokeh. Getting close to the foreground subject and zooming to the longest setting on your lens will likely put you where you need to be to capture killer bokeh
Here we have an example of close focus on the foreground subject coupled with a wide open aperture and longer focal length to create bokeh from small lights in the background
1) Look for points of light in the background. Perfect subjects for this are distant points of light at night, Christmas lights, light shining through leaves or specular reflections in daylight. If they all blend together nicely, that's nice bokeh. If they are perfect little circles, then that's neutral bokeh. If they are all swimmy and look little donuts, then that's bad bokeh.
2) You want the largest aperture your lens can achieve ( smallest f # ie f1.4- f4) The reason that you want the largest possible aperture your lens is capable of is to ensure that your bokeh is round and not faceted. If they are perfectly round in the middle of the image and oval or lentil shaped at the sides that tells you the image was probably shot at full aperture. If they are faceted your lens was not wide open, what you are seeing is the blades of the lens.
3) The idea is to get as much distance between the subject and the bokeh producing highlights. Also, the closer you are focused to the camera the shorter the depth of field (DOF) will be. This ensures those lights way off in the background will be nice and blurred out
The focal length of the lens is also a consideration. Depth of field is basically a function of focal length, distance to subject and aperture. At a given aperture and distance longer focal lengths result in shorter DOF. A short DOF is what we need to effectively blur the background highlights to produce bokeh. Getting close to the foreground subject and zooming to the longest setting on your lens will likely put you where you need to be to capture killer bokeh
Here we have an example of close focus on the foreground subject coupled with a wide open aperture and longer focal length to create bokeh from small lights in the background
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4) The size of the shape that you are trying to take your bokeh through is very important. If you cut the image too big you will simply get a silhouette image, ie your picture will take the shape of a heart or star, too small and the bokeh won't be discernible as a shape. Again this is very specific to the lens you are using to take your bokeh shot and is a bit of trial and error ( good thing we have digital now !)
For DSLR users (sorry point ‘n shooters this one may not won't work for you):
Point and shoot :
- try using your macro setting and play with the image size
If you are looking for other examples of Bokeh go here
For DSLR users (sorry point ‘n shooters this one may not won't work for you):
- Set your camera to Aperture Priority mode (A or Av on the program dial).
- Select the smallest possible aperture (f) number for your lens (should be ≤f/4).
- Switch your camera to manual focus and manually adjust the focus to make sure the lights aren't in focus
- Zoom your lens to somewhere around 50mm.
- Find some nice points of light at a distance of 10′ or greater from the camera (your Christmas tree is the perfect subject this time of year). You can focus on something or someone in the foreground and have the shaped lights in bokeh in the background
- Fire away!
Point and shoot :
- try using your macro setting and play with the image size
If you are looking for other examples of Bokeh go here
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