Shaped Bokeh!

[danophoto]

Originally Posted by Boozer

Thanks Amy! I would like to try this for Valentines day. How I wish I could find a christmas light thats all red.

The best part of being a photgrapher is when you know you can control everything in a scene, the subject, the background, foreground, and of course, the lighting.

I used a 3x4' pegboard, the type with 1/4" holes predrilled every 1" or so. Behind it I placed a strobe with a magenta colored Rosco Gel over the head.

For the bokeh shaper, I used the back side of a slimline CD case, the black plastic part cut with a utility knife. I think this will make it more durable and give a crisper look to the bokeh.

Taped the bokeh shaper over a 75-300, was set to around 200mm IIRC from about 15' from the subject, pegboard was another 5' back, and the strobe was an additional 5' back.

The key light was another strobe with a 32" diffusing umbrella with a Cactus wireless receiver. The magenta strobe was on slave, with a reflector to redirect the key over the pegboard so it would trip.

Camera was set to 1/125 to kill ambient light, f/5.6 (max) to get the largest bokeh, 200ISO to get the most out of the strobes. Prefocused on a placeholder, used a 10 second timer and ran.

After a few (okay, many!) failed attempts, here's the keeper. I made it for my wife for valentines day, it's Me!



Dan O.
Dan O. Photo - Home

[A brown]

This is incredible. I'm going to have to try this. You're pictures are wonderful, by the way.

[voltech]

thanks for the tips!

[violett213]

This is soo cool! Thanks Amy!
I wanted to try this and here is my little composition

[LoveMyNikon]

What a great tip - I can think of lots of situations where this would be very useful!!! Thanks for sharing!!

[amy-rose]

I thought I'd add on how to get lens 'sun'burst shape/effect. This was taken at an aperture of at least 6. The larger the aperture number the better the burst shape. If taken at too low of an aperture number it will appear as one big blob of light (ie aperture of 1.8, 2, 4 etc). This was taken at 7; 1/15 sec; iso1600.

[hungtran3010]

The images you posted are very nice. I love taking photos very much and I also have many kind of pictures. But i do not know how to update them on. Pls show me to do that?
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[mowais]

hello, can i use this technic with my Soy Cyberhsot DSC H20???

[amy-rose]

I would assume it could be if you turn the flash off. I'm not for sure though - you would probably just have to experiment!

[kknight]

That is so neat and I plan to try it when I get home!