Snowflake bokeh

[tokyorush]

Around new year's I got a piece of transparent plastic foil with some pattern on it, supposed to be used on Christmas decoration lights. When you look at a pointy source of light through the foil, bokeh takes shape of smiley or this snowflake..had an idea instantly...

Shaped the foil to fit between the lens and the filter, positioned bunch of LED lights 2 meters behind a coffee cup so it looks as they are the part of the fumes coming out of a smoking-hot cup of coffee and voila!



Canon 40D + Tamron 17-50 @ 50mm
f16 / bulb mode @ 30s / ISO100
Canon 430EX II through a piece of white paper just above the camera for diffuse and some ambient light from the kitchen (right).

Unfortunately, the foil makes the photos noisy as it is dirty and a bit damaged by now, so I had to opt for this high-contrast B&W look, but still feel the shot is not so bad. Could have used another light source from the left so that the left edge of the cup is more distinguishable from the black background, I'll fix it next time I give it a try. Later in Gimp just cleaned it up a bit, cloned out the visible parts of cables connecting LEDs, added the logos and the text on the bottom.

Hope you like it!

[WVCoalMiner]

Very Nice!!!!! Very Creative!!!! and if you have seen some of my posts I love to make things out of everyday stuff to take creative photo's plus it is FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tokyorush]

Great honor that Mr. WVCoalMiner likes my photos, I follow your posts and really admire the creativity you show...thanks for the kind words...

[WVCoalMiner]

Originally Posted by tokyorush

Great honor that Mr. WVCoalMiner likes my photos, I follow your posts and really admire the creativity you show...thanks for the kind words...

WOW, Thanks and I LOVE finding new and FREE ways to make interesting photo's!!!

You did a WONDERFUL Job here.

[JimL]

Personally, I like it. It may not be technically perfect as you mentioned but it shows a lot of creativity and imagination. Those qualities make for interesting photos.

[AuroraEclypse]

very very creative. What exactly does the foil look like again, having trouble picturing it in my mind.

[Judi]

Very cool!

[ShatteredPieces]

That is so neat! I've made heart bokeh but I never thought to do something so intricate. I must try that

[tokyorush]

Thanks people...

I'll get a closeup of the foil, dunno if the image will help, but I'll try...also will make a sketch of a setup, didn't take a photo of it...

[tokyorush]

Finally have some time on hands, here are some details:

Foil looks like this, the upper one is clipped on the edges to fit under the filter, snowflake one; the other one is double-smiley, still intact.



This is what they produce on my bedroom wall with the same yellow LEDs taped to it:





And here is the setup E-sketch (top view first, then side view):



Only thing not on the sketch, I used a DIY snoot to direct the light to the paper, after experimenting with how to light the cup, the ones with this setup worked the best, but also had to use some ambient light (kitchen light to the right is on, too bad I didn't turn on something on the left side as well). The idea was to avoid my room reflecting on the front side of the cup.

Thanks people, appreciated!