Bokeh is an adaptation from a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”.
In this post, I’m going to share with you a simple and fun way to create your own fanciful bokeh disk. As you know, a large aperture will give you some nice bokeh. Therefore the first thing you need to have is a large aperture lens. You don’t have to get a really expensive lens though, just a normal 50mm f1.8 lens will give you wonderful result.
Materials you will need:
- a sheet of black paper
- compass cutter
- scissors
- pencil
- cutter
First you will need to know the filter size of your lens (taking my 50mm lens as an example, the filter size is 52mm), then use the compass cutter to cut out a circle with a size slightly smaller than that. Next, cut out your desired shape in the middle of the disk. With this done, you are now ready to try them out:) (Tips: for more fanciful shapes, you can try using a craft puncher.)
This is how you will place the disk on your lens:
Some test shots:
From left: first shot without using any bokeh disk, second shot with star shaped disk and third with a heart shaped one.
Test shots with object in the foreground:
Ps* Please take note that when using the bokeh disk, the exposure value will drop a few stops. So don’t forget to adjust the shutter speed according or pushing up the ISO. Also please forgive my shaky hands in these sample shots.:P
Finally, here are 2 more shots where I put this technique into action….
