All About Bokeh Photography
Bokeh – one of the famous words in the Photography world. The word “bokeh” comes from the Japanese word “boke” (pronounced bo-keh) which literally means fuzziness or dizziness. Bokeh is said to describe the rendition of out-of-focus points of light. If sharpness is what happens at the point of best focus, then bokeh is what happens away from the point of best focus.
Essentially, bokeh is a qualitative measure of light distortion in the out-of-focus areas of an image, and is primarily caused by lens aberrations and aperture shape (wikipedia). This is important to know when achieving bokeh in your photography.
In this article, I will cover the following:
- The difference between Bokeh and Depth of Field
- How to get bokeh with your D-SLR
- How to get bokeh using Alienskin’s Bokeh Plugin
- Make your own custom shape bokeh
- Where to find more bokeh
Bokeh and Depth of Field (DOF)
I’ve seen this happen in photography forums where one may look at an image and comment that it has a nice bokeh, but in reality it just has a nice shallow DOF. I think all photographers had mistakenly confused the two together at some point in their career. I know I’ve done it. ALL of us have done it. So what’s the difference?
Depth of Field (DOF)
When there is an obvious focus area in a photograph that is set against a out-of-focus (blurred) background or foreground is considered to have depth of field. The image of the flowers below is a good example of DOF.
Bokeh
Bokeh refers to how your camera lens renders the light that is seen within the blurred parts of the image. Sometimes this can be soft or harsh circular shapes, or look like hexagons, depending on your lens design and aperture settings.
Image shown below displays a pretty good amount of bokeh. If a larger aperture was used, the background would’ve been smoother and “creamier”.
Even though these terms are different in meaning, they are still relevant to each other and important to understand if you want to achieve bokeh in your photography.
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How To Get Bokeh
Getting Bokeh With Your D-SLR
Let’s go over what you need to achieve some bokeh:
- A fast lense: Any lense with a large aperture (i.e. f2.8). A good lense that fits this category is the Canon 35mm L f1.4 or the 50mm 1.8 (aka nifty-fifty).
- Zoom: To exaggerate bokeh even more, use a zoom lense at its longest focal length (i.e. for a 70-200, use 200mm).
- Understand Depth of Field.
- A background with light sources.
So now you have the proper equipment and knowledge about DOF and bokeh, let’s take a sample shot:
- Place a subject with a light source behind them. It could be a candle, lamp, christmas lights, etc.
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Use the largest aperture and focus on your subject. If you are using a zoom lense, use the largest focal length to further enhance the depth of field.
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Make sure the light source (background) is truly out-of-focus by adjusting your distance to your subject.
- Focus on your subject and press the shutter.
Do you see the hexagonal shapes on the image to the right? That is bokeh.
When every light source becomes out-of-focus in the image is a good representation of bokeh. Sometimes an image doesn’t need to have light source to produce bokeh. It could be a reflection on the water and if the aperture is large enough, it will bokeh.
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Getting Bokeh With Photoshop
With Alienskin’s Bokeh Plugin, it is now possible to achieve some realistic bokeh. The Bokeh plugin is the only Photoshop plugin that can simulate the distinctive blurring and creamy highlights of real lenses. With this plugin, you are able to achieve Depth of Field, Distinctive Bokeh Highlights, Tilt-Shift Effects, Accurate Lens Simulation, and Vignetting. A pretty thorough User’s Manual is available for download.
NOTE: One thing to remember is to feather your selection for more realistic bokeh look.
Here is a before and after created with the Bokeh plugin. Notice the star effect. That’s just one of many neat features of this pretty cool plug-in!
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Make Your Own Bokeh
DIY Photography has a great tutorial on how to create your own bokeh shapes. Erik Solheim also has a nice how-to video in Vimeo.
Very important to keep in mind is that you need a lens with a large aperture (f2.8 or lower). Also having a larger focal length tends to make the effect more pronoun.
TIP: I’m not a great cutter myself, but I found a very neat tool to help me cut my shapes. The tool is called Fiskars Shape Cutter is available online or at your nearest arts and crafts store.
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Where To Find Bokeh
Flikr
Bokeh is everywhere! An insane amount of Flikr groups are hardcore Bokeh lovers. Here are some groups that I currently follow:
On the Web
Here is a list of websites that shows great examples of bokeh and even creating your own shapes!
- 70 Amazing Bokeh Photography, Wallpapers and Tutorials
- The Best 6 Ways To Create Your Own Bokeh
- DIY – Create your own Bokeh
- Eirikso – Bokeh tutorial and samples
Films and Movies
Once you start paying attention to what bokeh really is, you will start to see them in movies and shows. Such titles described below shows a hefty amount of bokeh.
- Money Train
- The Dark Knight
- Entourage (opening credit)
- Monster House
- Hero
- Cruel Intentions
- The Wedding Crasher
- The Eternal Sunshine
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Bokeh Sources
Where is Your Bokeh?
Do you have any photos or websites to share that has great bokeh? If so, please share with us!
