Take A Bokeh Photo
What you will learn: How to take a Bokeh photograph
What is Bokeh?
Bokeh is defined as “the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when shooting a subject, with a fast lens, at the widest aperture, such as f/2.8 or wider.”
‘Bokeh also known as “Boke” is one of the most popular subjects in photography. The reason why it is so popular is that Bokeh makes photographs visually appealing, forcing us to focus our attention on a particular area of the image. The word comes from the Japanese language, which translates as “blur”.
Simply put, bokeh is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus blur in a photograph.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT DEPTH OF FIELD?
Depth of field is the zone of acceptable sharpness within a photo that is in focus.
When attempting to capture an image that represents this technique, you are required to consider these three points:
Aperture (f-stop)
Distance from the subject to the camera
The focal length of the lens on your camera
Aperture?
Put most simply – Aperture is ‘the opening in the lens.’
When you hit the shutter release button of your camera a hole opens up that allows your camera’s image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re capturing. The aperture you set impacts the size of that hole.
Tip - The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light
The f-stops to use to form the depth of field will always begin at F-stop 5.6 and below. The wider, the aperture or the larger the hole that lets the light into the camera will form that blurry background to each image.
In every picture, there is the depth of field and this is what you need to remember as the depth of field works in plans of distances from the camera, just like our eyes.
When you see you always see the first or the nearest object to what you are looking at, this is what the camera will do, focusing on the nearest item. You need to remember this and then when you change the aperture the area of focus changes and the further away items begin to fall off and become out of focus.
Narrow Depth of Field — Only a small part of the image is in sharp focus. Narrow or small DoF, you only focus on the subject and blur out the background. Used for flowers, objects & portraits. This is below f5.6
Aperture & Focal Length
The key point to remember:
As the focal length value decreases, the lens becomes a wide-angle lens, and as the value increases, it becomes a telephoto lens.
50 ml is what we all see with our eyes. (on a full-frame camera)
Do you know the difference between a wide-angle and a telephoto lens?
Telephoto lens - these will zoom towards what you are photographing (Telephoto is 50 m and higher)
Wide-angle lens - this will zoom away from what you are photographing. (Wide-angle is 28 m and lower)
The different focal lengths per lens will effect the depth of field when taking a photograph, so it is good to understand the difference between these two types of lenses.
Key points to remember - as you soon in closer to your subject with your aperture at the same point your background will begin to become blurry.
Understanding Bokeh
How to Achieve Bokeh
To increase the likelihood of creating visible bokeh in your photographs, increase the distance between your subject and the background. You can do this by decreasing the distance between the camera and the subject. The more shallow the depth-of-field, or further the background is, the more out-of-focus it will be.
Can you get bokeh with an 18-55 kit lens?
To achieve an aesthetic bokeh with an 18-55 kit lens, shoot at the furthest focal distance, with the widest aperture, with as much distance between your subject and your background as possible.
Which camera lens has the best bokeh?
There is no clear winner, although generally the wider your lens, the more drastic – and beautiful – your bokeh effect. You should use a lens with at least an f/2.8 or wider to get a quality bokeh effect on your photos
Bokeh Camera Settings
You’ll want to shoot with the lens wide open, so you’ll want to use a shooting mode of Aperture Priority or Manual. Manual gives you the ability to choose both your aperture and shutter speed, whereas Aperture Priority allows you to choose the f/stop while the camera chooses the appropriate shutter speed for the exposure.
Let's consider White Balance!
White balance is the tone of the colour in a photograph. You need to consider this when photographing flashing lights or Christmas lights.
‘White balance is a camera setting that adjusts the colour balance of light you're shooting in so that it appears a neutral white’
BOKEH TYPES
BOKEH
There are two types of Bokeh, you can either have the sun shining through nature or you can use man-made lights to take pictures that represent Bokeh.
NATURAL BOKEH
PROCESS
Okay start with your camera at F2.8 or lower and if you have a kit lens you may only have the option to take your F-stop to 5.6, so move it to there and then use these measurements to keep to the distance between you, the camera and lights.
The distance suggested above will help when on location either taking night lights or a natural bokeh background in your photograph.
You can attempt to autofocus with your camera if you can move your focus point around the LED screen at the back.
Try manual focusing on the foreground object or person
Use a tripod if shooting with lights, as the room or night lights will require a slower than 1/60 speed.
Use a fixed prime lens if you have one so that you can have a wide aperture. Remember that once you widen the aperture the focus area will decrease.
When using night or fairy lights consider the position of the lights within your composition. You may light to experiment with negative space and let the light fill this area in a set shape or direction.
Try the light in front of the object you are photographing to add to your picture.
Experiment with your White balance when taking night or fairy light photographs. There is no correct answer, so experiment and decide which you prefer.
ACTIVITY - To try at home:
Customize your Bokeh shapes
Create a unique shape for your bokeh, you’ll need:
Black construction paper
Scissors (or a shaped puncher stamp for a perfectly formed shape)
Tape
Use your scissors to make a shaped hole (around the size of a dime) in your piece of black paper. Tape the paper over your lens, guiding the hole into the middle of the lens, and snap away.
My next blog will be a further instalment upon using what you have learned here and then practising the photo stacking process.
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