Today is day 4 of my 365 photography challenge and I created this photo:
As you can see I’ve turned the bokeh (out of focus light) into stars! It’s a neat little trick I learned a while ago.. I think I need a bit more practice (I’ve seen some wicked photos using this technique) but this aint too bad. Anyway, I took a couple of shots to show you how it’s done..
All you will need is some card, (black is recommended but all I had was brown which worked just as well) a pen, scissors, stanley knife and sticky tape.
Firstly, trace around your lens cap onto the card then carefully draw another circle around that. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Cut it out.
Then cut out triangles from the outer circle to the inner circle. This will create tabs on the outside. In the centre of the circle, draw and cut out a shape of your choice. I chose a star but you might like to try a diamond or heart perhaps. You can cut out any shape but it does need to be quite small so keep that in mind.
Then all you have to do is attach is to your lens with some tape and have a play!
Bokeh Tips:
1. Adjust your focus before attaching the stencil, then switch to manual focus. This will stop the camera from trying to focus on something you don’t want to focus on! Bah!
2. To get a good blur happening, change your aperture to a low setting. I use f/1.8 on my 50mm lens.
3. Small but bright lights! I used a light reflecting on a pearl necklace in the pic above but if you have fairy lights (couldn’t find mine..) they work really well, especially coloured!
what a brilliant idea – thanks. I’ve recently started to learn photoshop, so this technique will come in handy as i love playing around with bokeh in photos. PS: thanks for visiting my blog!
Thanks for the visit! Bokeh is good fun, especially around Christmas time with all the fairy lights. Have fun experimenting!