THE MISSION
Change the look of out-of-focus highlights in your images by creating your very own bokeh template to stick on the lens
Time needed
One hour
Skill level
Advanced
Kit needed
• Various household items (see right)
• Black card
• A 35mm, 50mm or 85mm prime
If you’ve held an interest in photography for some time you’ve probably come across the term ‘bokeh’ before. It’s a word of Japanese origin that’s used to describe out-of-focus specular highlights in the background of your shots, usually in portraits taken with wide apertures.
The shape of your bokeh is determined by the shape of your aperture, which will be circular if the aperture is made up of enough blades. However, lenses, such as Canon’s original EF 50mm f/1.8 ‘nifty-fifty’ lens, use a five-sided aperture ring. This gives bokeh a distinctive pentagonal look. Some people prefer the circular bokeh shapes, and perhaps that’s why the latest EF 50mm f/1.8 STM version has a seven-bladed aperture to smooth this out and give it a more circular look.
When you shoot at your widest maximum aperture value, such as f/1.8, you move the aperture blades totally out of the way, so the bokeh shape becomes circular, as it’s then defined by the circular lens barrel. In our fun technique this month we’re going shoot wide open, but add our own aperture shape, or pattern, to the front of the lens. This will transform the shape of the out-of-focus highlights in the image.
This story is from the June 2020 edition of PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine.
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This story is from the June 2020 edition of PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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