Monday, June 22, 2009

June 2009 - Bokeh

The homework subject for June 2009 was simply "Bokeh".

Not wanting this to turn in to a techy-geek knee rubbing session a quick explanation of what Bokeh is can be found on that font of all knowledge - wikipedia

Basically it is a technique that takes advantage of the blur caused by shallow depth of field to add something to the photo. This could be as simple as bluring a background to the more creative use of intentional blur to add elements to the shot.
So here is my homework offering:

Cookie Monster Love Cookies
And here is how I did it. Based on details given on DIY Photography I produced a homemade lense hood with a shaped appature approximtly equal to focal length/appature (in my case 50mm/1.8 = 25mm nearr as damn it):

I then set cookie monster up with a wall of lights behind him but with the distance between the camera and CM half that between CM and the lights to get a good amount of blur.
And just to demonstrate the effectivness of the bokeh hood here is are two shots with and without the hood - see how the left has near circular light blobs (the shape of the appature inside the lense) and the right is heart shaped.

Without hood With hood

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