![]() A lens with more circular shaped blades will have rounder, softer orbs of out-of-focus highlights, whereas a lens with an aperture that is more hexagonal in shape will reflect that shape in the highlights.ĭon't worry if you don't own a very fast lens. Usually seen more in highlights, bokeh is affected by the shape of the diaphragm blades (the aperture) of the lens. Best Lens for BokehĪlthough bokeh is actually a characteristic of a photograph, the lens used determines the shape and size of the visible bokeh. Many photographers like to use fast prime lenses when shooting photographs that they want visible bokeh in. You’ll want to use a lens with at least an f/2.8 aperture, with faster apertures of f/2, f/1.8 or f/1.4 being ideal. To achieve bokeh in an image, you need to use a fast lens-the faster the better. All that said, let’s get onto the actual steps.D3100, 55mm lens, 1/10 second, f/5.6. It’s much easier to fit a one inch wide strip of card stock into the paper punch than a three inch diameter disc. We recommend this technique as it makes it way easier to use craft store paper punches. Rather than make one disc and tape it down to the hood, we instead made a little view-finder like cutout (seen in the photo above) that allows us to slide individual bokeh templates in and out of the lens hood-thus you can use a snow flake for one photo and then slide it out and use a diamond shape for the next, only one lens hood required. ![]() the entire assembly only creates one bokeh shape) we opted to make our labor more worthwhile and craft an interchangeable model. Because this is a photography project taking the time to tape cleanly and seal off any light leaks is very important.Īlthough you can make this a fixed lens hood (i.e. This made rolling/taping the lens hood so much easier as we could use the can as a sturdy mold to keep from crushing the hood as we worked with it.Ĭrafting the lens hood is a simple task-the most important part is that you take your time and measure carefully. We dug around in the pantry until we found a small can of condensed soup that was almost exactly the same size as the barrel of the 50mm lens. Also, of all the tools we used a humble soup can was the most useful one. The inexpensive 50mm 1.8 lenses you can get for most SLR cameras are excellent candidates for this project, the larger aperture lens you have access to the better. Optional: A can roughly the diameter of your lensįor this tutorial we used a Nikon D80 camera with a Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens.Optional: A craft/scrapbooking hole punch.A roll of dark tape (electrical tape works very well).A few sheets of black card or cover stock.The photo above, by Kevin Dooley, does a great job of showcasing both depth of field and bokeh highlights.įor this tutorial you’ll need very few things, the camera equipment aside you can make it from scrap you find around the house. In other words, bokeh is a word that completely encapsulates the essence and aesthetic quality of a blurred background photo. Old school American photographers will also refer to it as the “circle of confusion” or “blur circles” but bokeh better describes the concept we’re interested in for this tutorial as it goes beyond simply describing what is in and out of the focal area (as circle of confusion does) and refers instead to the entire area outside of the focus, the quality of the light, and the effects of the lens and lens aperture on the blur and highlight shapes within that out of focus area. The Japanese term for that area, and the most popularly used, is “bokeh” pronounced “boh-ka”. What we’re interested in is the too-far-away portion of the photo. Any time you look at a portrait with a soft focused background or a nature photograph with a bird in flight against an unfocused background of trees, you’re seeing the effects of depth of field-only the object in the focal plane is in focus and everything closer or farther away than the focal plane is out of focus. Everything too close to the the camera (and away focal point of the lens) is out of focus and anything too far away from the sweet spot is also out of focus. The depth of field, simply put, is the area of the photograph in focus. What Is This “Bokeh” Thing and What Does It Look Like?Įvery photograph has what is known as a depth of field (or DOF).
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