This photo is nothing special - just a test shot, but I just wanted to try out the technique real quick and figured I'd share the results/techniques. I love have the shaped bokeh even overlaps the foreground. If you don't know already - the shape of bokeh lights match the shape of your aperture - which is usually either round or pentagonal - depending how open you are shooting. This image I shot pretty much wide open. I took a small piece of thin cardboard and cut a heart shape in it. It took 2 tries to get the right size, my final cut-out is about half an inch. I held the cardboard in front of the lens, shifting around a little until the bokeh looked right... and shot. I spent about 20 seconds cutting this out from scrap lying around - but if you wanted to make it cleaner - maybe I could have used a black board and cut it to fit into a filter mount. I'm sure you can think of some fun ideas to apply this to. Comments? Ideas? How I did it...
What a cool idea! The effect is cool, too. So did you play with the size and placement of the cut-out while looking through the viewfinder? And was the paper held in contact with the front of the lens or was there a gap? And is it same to presume that you had to manually focus?
My first cut-out was too big and the bokeh didnt look any different then normal. So after re-sizing it, while looking thru the view finder I moved around the cut-out a little, just shifting it around a little will get it just right. Yes, the board was held in contact with the lens - just like a lens filter would. And the autofocus will work - but sometimes might get thrown off - so Manual focus is a smart option but not necessarily necessary. Glad you like - give it a try.
You mean shaped "specular highlights" lol.... There's actually a company out there making this as an overpriced kit...
Well, there's some disambiguation in the use of the term - and I know some people think of bokeh as just the out-of-focus plane in an image - but I've read it defined as: "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light." (http://photojpn.org/words/len.html) which I suppose those points of light are indeed specular highlights - so it could go either way. But then again a specular highlight could be in focus also - and you couldn't shape a specular highlight (at least not by this method) unless it was rendered out of focus.... so I'm sticking with bokeh. I've seen those kits too - I'd give a +1 to DIY in this case though because you can make custom shapes. You could do a simple logo (like a Nike logo), or depending on your level of maturity make your friends look ridiculous with penis shaped specular highlights surrounding them. Lol.
Bokeh seems to be used to define many things and more than just the specular highlights but how a lens renders the out of focus area of a lens as a whole. There are some lenses that are harsh in the way the background goes out of focus and others that can be more described as creamy looking... The specular highlights usually take on the shape of the aperture blades, hence some are circular and others are more octagon looking, all depends on the number of blades and the shape of the blades...You're using the cutout to override the shape of the blades and take on the shape that you put in front of the lens. Here's the one I saw which has some good ideas for your own DIY version, which is the way I'd go this is way too much for what it it... http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/bokeh-Kit/ Wouldn't fit on any of my lenses as except for my 50 they are all 77mm or larger. If you really want to bring the DIY to the next level... Knock the glass out of a cheap old UV filter and make some cardboard circles to fit inside the UV's screw in ring... I suppose you don't have to break a UV filter, but I have no other use for them anyway lol...
...Or cut out the shape on masking tape, and tape the positive image to a uv filter and spray paint the rest black. Though, either of those would go out of wack, spinning around .... once you start focusing. Or, I use a Cokin-style filter mount, I could slide a flat one into.
The Cokin holder would probably be a good idea.... Spray paint would be permanent, I'd rather use oaktag and be able to change the shape....
Joe ~ You give me much reason to dig into my scrapbooking supplies! I have a bunch of punches that I might experiment with! Tolga ~ Thanks for the link, I love the bokeh kit they have on photojojo ... it reminds me of my cookie press! Now to find time to experiment!
