How do you make the lights in the
background of your image turn into
different shapes?
I'll show you right after the intro.
Hey welcome back to Ask
David Bergman, of course here I am
answering your photography questions.
Don't forget to go to AskDavidBergman.com,
ask your own photo questions there,
and I'll answer the best ones right here
on a future show.
Today I've got one from P Bharat and he asked.
How do you make star-shaped 'bokeh' in pictures?
Now, first of all if you know what I'm
talking about, usually I would say bokeh,
and a lot of people say boka.. but it's
actually a Japanese word that means haze
or blur, and I've talked to some Japanese
friends and it's really pronounced
'bokay' so I'm gonna try my best to not
mess that up.
I probably will a few times but it is
actually bokeh,
so what are we talking about
photographically when
we're talking about bokeh.
What we mean is that when we shoot
with it with a really shallow depth of field,
and our background goes out of focus
and the foreground goes out of focus as well.
We're talking about the quality of that
out-of-focus area, does it look pleasing, is it a good
look, is it something that really makes
our subject pop off of that background.
That is really the quality there is
actually the bokeh, and and we're
always striving to make it look really,
really nice.
So one of the ways we can do
it is by using a really good lens like
this this is the Canon 85mm f/1.4 and when
you shoot wide open at one point for
those aperture blades are open all the
way, and when you focus on something in
the foreground like we have Megan in the
studio here, you can see that background.
We have those little specular lights,
those little twinkle lights we put up on
the background, you can see they go
really out of focus, and they turn into
these big white circles, and it looks
really, really pleasing, now one of the
reasons you buy a nice lens like this is,
because it has eight or nine aperture
blades in it, and because it's open all
the way those aperture blades create a
nice even circle, and that's the shape of
those lights in the background, if we
were using a lesser expensive lens, maybe
an entry-level lens that only had
five or six aperture blades, it would
actually look different, and those lights
would be more of a pentagon or a hexagon,
because that's the shape of those blades.
So now that you know that it's actually
the diaphragm blades,
and the way the light is coming through
there that causes the the look of that,
those lights in the background, we know
now that we can change that, so the
simplest way is literally by putting a
piece of cardboard or something black in
front of the lens, and cutting a shape on
there, and if you do that first of all
you're gonna block some light from
coming in, so make sure you, you
compensate for your exposure, if you do
that you have to either bump up your ISO,
or slow down your shutter speed to let
more light in, because you're blocking so
much light.
But when you do that, you'll
see that it actually, those lights in the
background actually take the shape that
you have created in the front.
Now if you don't want to do the arts and crafts and
make it yourself, there's a couple other
ways to do it.
Adorama sells a boceh masters kit that
already has cut out shapes, and it's formed
to the right size, and it makes it pretty
easy to do.
It only works on lenses with
smaller filter diameters,
so i can't actually use it on this setup,
but for maybe an APS-C camera with a
corresponding lens, it might work really
really well on that, and it's fun to play
around with, but there is another way.
The company Lensbaby, they've been
around a long time. I'm a big fan of their stuff,
you can buy optics from them, that it's a
basically, you take your lens off and you
put this lens on, and what it allows you
to do is, create the sort of
old-fashioned maybe plastic lens looking
effects, where there's a sweet spot in
the middle, and then the outsides go out
of focus, and they've got a number of
different lenses that do different
things, and it's this is called the
Composer Pro, and then you put the optic
inside of here, and you can buy different
optic, optics and swap them out to get
the effect you want, but one of the ones
that they have is called the creative
bokeh optic, and you put that in there,
and that lens actually comes with a
bunch of these little disks, and these
disks all have separate shapes on them,
and the disks are magnetic and you stick
them inside the lens, and they stick
there and once that's in there, it's the
same thing as if you covered the lens
with a piece of cardboard, and cut out
your own shape, it's just a little bit
more elegant way to do it.
So now when we take a picture of
Megan, once I put that, that insert in there
with the star on it, look at those lights in the
background, they actually turn into stars,
so it's really a cool effect.
This kit comes with different shapes, and
a few of those disks,
so you can cut your own, you could
write your name and if you want to do,
or your initials and have all the little
specular lights in the background turn
into whatever it is that you want.
Now it does change depending on how
close or how far away you are, the further away
you are from those lights the more
they're gonna go out of focus, but this
is really not something you're gonna do
every day, it's just kind of a fun
creative thing to play around with.
So that's how you change the shape on those
out-of-focus things in the background.
So thanks for asking that question, listen
don't forget I said it in the beginning
but if you have your own photo questions
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