Custom Bokeh Shapes

According to Wikipedia, the definition of bokeh is:

"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”

Bokeh is a word derived from Japanese, which means “blur” or “haze”, or boke-aji, the “blur quality”. The Japanese term bokeh is also used in the sense of a mental haze or senility.

Without a doubt, bokeh is one of the most interesting and sort after thing in digital photography. And it’s indeed evident from the following photographs.


Technique

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh.

You will need :

One large aperture lens (a Nikon 50mm F1.8 is used here, but Canon 50mm 1.8 will also do, and the superb Nikon 50mm 1.4 will work even better)
One sheet of black paperboard
1. Cut and shape the sheet to make a fake lens hood. The Diameter is made so that it snugly fits on the lens.

2.In the middle of the filter the wanted bokeh shape is cut out - in out example a heart is used. I’m not sure how big a hole the shape can be. But you can check it right away by just looking through the viewfinder. On the 50mm lens @ F1.8 a 15mm heart gives a metering value equal to F3.2, so it can probably be a little bigger (you can use a puncher or cut it by hand).





3. Set your camera to its lowest aperture value (completely open).

Start shooting something and you’ll noticed your bokeh will have the shape just like the one on the cardboard. Here are some beautiful custom bokeh to inspire you.