Monday, December 06, 2010

Photo Talk: Christmas Bokeh

I assume you've seen the word Bokeh before? At some point. People loooove to throw it around. Like me I do! :)

"Bokeh (derived from Japanese boke ぼã', a noun form of bokeru ぼã'ã‚‹, "become blurred or fuzzy") is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field."

Sooo really it means the fuzzy stuff in the background of pictures! :) Like in this one. You can see it easily in this one. All those little circles on the left side - Bokeh!
Evie

One of the great things about Christmas lights is getting cool bokeh from your tree lights!
See this picture is pretty... but no bokeh.
the 2010 Tree

Want me to teach you how to take some bokeh? GREAT :) This is NOT going to be in photographic talk. (well unless we use the word Bokeh... but we can now since we already discussed that right! ;) )

The first thing is that you need to take off your automatic focus. It needs to be in manual. Then you put it out of focus so much that small circles appear. Then you take a picture.
small bokeh
f 9.0 1/8 ss
ISO 500
Bokeh #3
See how this one is lighter? Cause I was shooting more wide open with my aperture.
f 2.8 1/8 ss
ISO 500
Bokeh #4

Medium Bokeh
f 4.0 1/8 ss
ISO 500
Bokeh #1
This one is the same as number 2 it is just zoomed in more, and the viola bigger circles.
BIG bokeh
f 2.8 1/8 ss
ISO 500
Bokeh #2

Does that make sense??
And wanna try some and show them to me?

5 comments:

Alysha Sladek said...

i LOVE bokeh!!! it's just awesome

nichole said...

I had actually not heard that term, but it is my favorite thing in photography. Hense why I have my big lens that is all f2.8!

Abby Metz said...

I love bokeh!!!! Haha! Now I have a word for it! - thank you muchly Rhonda. I always thought you needed a special lense to get that effect in the background and yet still have your subject in focus - is that true? I really ought to learn how to take my camera off of auto and learn how to make it focus manually, I know it can be done, but I just don't know how. Someday I will pull out the manual when I don't have anything else to do - HA! For now though, I'll just keep admiring your pictures!

Heather said...

I just heard the term about a month ago. I need to take pictures of my tree now. Your pics are great.

Julie said...

sweet! hadn't heard that term (actually, JUST learning a lot of photography terms!) and I've just learned something new :) thanks!