Bokeh Setup

As promised before I would like to describe my setup for custom shaped bokeh. 

At first I checked what others had to say about it and try their ideas. I tried a lot of them 

1) fancy paper shape held by rubber band 

• Advantages: 
• Lightweight 
• Cheap 
• Disadvantages 
• Tends to get folded in backpack. 
• Rubber band and bits of paper tend to obstruct my manual focus ring. 

2) Paper tube shape put over the lens. 

• Advantages: 
• Lightweight 
• Cheap 
• Disadvantages 
• Even more prone for backpack crushing. 
• Still obstructing manual focus ring 
• More complex to create 
• Need some way of changing cutout shapes. 

3) Plastic tube shape over the lens 

• Advantages: Looks slightly better than paper version 
• Still cheap 
• Disadvantages: 
• Plastic tube has to match outer diameter of the lens perfectly - if it does it scratches outer parts of the lens. If it does not then it rattle a bit and can easily fall off. - I did try slightly bigger tube with some EVA foam as cushioning, but results were far from great due to lack of DIY skills on my part. 
• Complex to create, 
• Needs some way of changing cutout shapes. 

4) using old socks as described in this tutorial. 

• Advantages: 
• Cheap 
• Easy to mount
• Disadvantages: 
• Not something I would like to be seen with. 
• Blocks manual focus ring. 
• Did I mentioned the looks? 

I'm far from saying that all of those are bad ideas. I just was looking for better setup. My goal was to create something that: 

• Is easy to attach to lens 
• Doesn't cover manual focus ring 
• Is sturdy 
• Allows changing bokeh shapes 
• Does not pass light on the sides 
• Is easy to store and carry 
• Does not attract disgusted looks 

Some of my designs would make me instant internet meme, so I won't describe them. The best one - the one I'm using now - consists of three elements: holder, paper insert and foam filler. 

The holder is the step-up adapter 55-77 - my lens has a 55mm diameter filter screw. Additional space helps holding the card with custom shape hole and prevents light leaks Holder 



The paper inset is circle cut from black technical paper with custom shaped hole in the middle. As I'm using 55-77mm adapter as the holder the circle diameter have to be slightly smaller than 77mm to avoid brushing against thread. If it is too big the paper bends outward and it is harder to remove from holder. Talking about removing it - I attached a piece of tape to each circle to make it easier. Insert 



The foam filler is the circle cut of black craft EVA foam (purloined from my daughter school project). The outer diameter is 77mm - this circle has to fit the thread and hold the card in place. There is a hole in the middle (approx 25mm) - has to by slightly bigger than the size of the shaped hole in the card. Small piece cut at the top allows easier removal.



Insert card is put in holder  and held by filler. Holder can be attached to lens as long as needed. For regular photo (without custom bokeh) I simply remove foam and card. At end of the session I unscrew the adapter. 



All together (holder, filler and few inserts) fit without problem in filter box. 



Next time I will describe different attempts at cutting complex shapes and the outcome, so please come back. 

 Any comments or suggestions are more than welcome.

Blur Bokeh

While working with custom shaped bokeh I initially tried the standard heart and star shaped ones and then moved to some complex shapes. In some cases it worked perfectly in some effects where not visible or not worth the effort.

I will write another blog entry related to custom shaped bokeh and tests I made (hopefully quite soon). 

One of the shapes that I tried lead to interesting effect. It is the bokeh in the shape of the slit.

At first I tried to do it using my typical bokeh models (very patient, lot of personality and great at standing still) and my normal setup with some lights in the back.

Lights were not that interesting, but I noticed that the other elements of background looked blurred horizontally as well. 

In most tutorials you will find tips suggesting to have distinct lights far in the back. However bokeh works also in full light outdoor conditions - custom shapes are just not as easy to notice. Even better! So my next attempts were concentrated on shooting slit bokeh during the day. 

Both camera position and photographed object did not move during shooting following pictures:

Conclusion is that slit shaped cutout makes bokeh effect similar to motion blur (direction depends on angle of the slit). It is not exactly the same blur effect you get when panning picture aiming at fast moving object, but close. 

I'm not great at panning - high percentage of my panned pictures have main object blurred as well - this method had additional benefit for me. The object/model does not have to move at all. Having said that there are differences that many can dislike. For example picture of the car that is done with this motion blur bokeh will have wheels not blurred, while the one done with panning will have them blurred due to spinning. I will update this entry once I have photo good examples.

Update (18-02-2016): I tried to use it with landing plane. As the plane was far enough, the effect was almost not visible. So the motion blur bokeh method is better for objects that are really close. I will try with macro photography.

Tools needed:

• Lens with big aperture (mine is 50mm 1.4)
• Piece of cardboard/this paper.
• Scissors
• Way of attaching the shape in front of lens

Process:

• Cut the shape of the slit (few mm wide) in cardboard.
• Attach in front of the lens so the slit is positioned centrally.
• Set to aperture priority and open as wide as possible.
• Shoot object that is quite close with background far back.

Things to try next:

• Different widths of the slit.
• Slits in not linear shapes (waves, long ovals, zig-zags).

As previously, I would appreciate any comments/questions/suggestions. 

Hair birefringence and LCD backlight

One of the tricks I tried is birefringence of plastic objects. I set up LCD screen (tv), polarizing lens and some objects that would generate required effect (like the bottle below).



At some point my daughter walked into frame. She usually moves way to fast and considers posing to be extremely boring. This time she was preoccupied with some snack and I managed to shoot few pictures. However it was done with the setup I had for testing birefringence (in front of LCD TV, and my lens had polarizing filter on). I immediately discovered that her hair affected light in similar way as some plastic objects.



From this came idea of using LCD screen to highlight the hair of the person. Few days later I shoot few more pictures with slightly better light setup,



I tried it with myself as subject, but since my hairstyle is far from lush/luxuriant the effect was not that great. It doesn't mean it was complete disaster. Hair were highlighted from the back with the colors displayed on the screen.



This led to more attempts and LCD displaying color patterns can create interesting lighting for portraits. I didn't use much of the additional lighting (just whatever was available in the room), however to add some dramatic lighting I held a tablet with a one-color image displayed. Below is the test with some pattern displayed on screen (I have intentionally rotated polarizing filter to show the pattern behind).



Tools needed:

• Lens with polarizing filter.
• LCD TV (the bigger the better).
• Ability to display patterns on that screen.

Process:

• Put subject in front of the screen (back toward screen).
• Display color or pattern on the screen.
• Rotate filter so the screen looks black.
• Shoot.

Tips and Tricks:

• Distinct patterns (like horizontal b/w stripes) do not have much effect. I was hoping that skin would reflect part of the pattern, but was unable to do so. I will try to make skin more reflective by using baby oil in the future.
• Color wheels, or two color gradients work nicely.
• If subject is close to the screen the effect of back-lighting is more visible.
• Clean your screen - the dirt on the screen (yes - I'm ashamed) is adding bright spots to the background - I had to remove it in post-processing. As example see last picture.

Hope you enjoyed it and will have some fun testing this technique. I would appreciate any comments/questions/suggestions. I will answer them as fast as I can.

Yay! First post!

I'm an amateur photographer. Amateur as in photography is not my profession. I do try different techniques both during the shooting pictures as well as during post processing. Some of them are well known, but some were invented (mostly by accident) by yours truly.

So I decided to create a blog to document some of attempts and share my observations, tips, tricks and quite possibly what went wrong.

Welcome and please share your opinions and suggestions.