Whatever is out of focus will be rendered with the bokeh shape that you applied to your lens.

Same shot as above (slightly different angle) but focused on the foreground instead.

From Wikipedia: 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”. Differences in  and  shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting— “good” or “bad” bokeh, respectively. Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus.

What lenses are best for a good bokeh? A large aperture lens with a fast or very fast aperture (smaller numbers=larger maximum aperture) would be necessary so a lens with a maximum aperture of 1.8 or 1.4 will be very good, I use most of times a Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM, which is indeed super fast and bright but again 1.4 or 1.8 is good already and  it won’t break your bank account!

Bokeh, bokeh shapes and boke filters:
Recently, photographers have found how to exploit the shape of the bokeh by creating a simple mask out of card with the shape that the photographer wishes the bokeh to be, and placing it over the lens. Common shapes are stars and hearts, but it is possible to create it with almost any shape imagined.

After owning that fast lens ( and  a camera..DUH!) you will need the following:

1. Spare Camera lens cap to fit the size of the lens you will be using to do bokeh shots with
2. Squeeze paper Punch (pictured here is a 3/4″ x 3/4″ square  puncher)
3. One thin sheet of black carboard
4. Knife
5. Candle
6. Tape or glue
7. Black Marker (if using a light color cardboard)

Punch the cardboard with your shape puncher. Here above I folded the carboard in half and included about 3/4 of the square cut shape in the puncher in order to get a rectangular shape, since I wanted a rectangular bokeh and not a squared one like in the puncher :) Then with a black marker cover both sides of the cardboard.

Light up a candle and after your knife is super HOT cut the rectangular shape in your lens cape roughfly in the middle of the cap. Don’t worry if it’s not super straight or super smooth, since the cardboard mask that you have previously made with the puncher is what is gonna give you the clean bokeh edges that you want. Do not try to cut the bokeh shape/mask with scissors or an exacto knife, otherwise your bokeh will look fuzzy and imperfect (basically like crap!). All you need to worry is that the cut in the cap will be fairly large and larger than your actual carboard mask with the bokeh shape. The puncher shown here has a hole of 3/4″ x 3/4″

Do keep in mind that the smaller the bokeh mask hole you ‘ll make, the less the light it’s going to get to your lens, forcing you to either:

1. Shoot with a higher ISO and therefore getting a grainier (more noise) picture
2. Use a tripod or even worse get a blurry shot instead

As you can see the cut is pretty rough on the lens cap, but it doesn't matter as long as the bokeh mask does have super clean edges and the cardboard is clean cut. That is the reason why is very important to use a hole puncher and don't cut the shape with scissors or a blade!

After you cut the lens cap sand it off and make smooth on the inside (the side facing the lens) so you can glue your bokeh mask in there, you really only have to worry about placing the bokeh mask cenetered, since you are gonna be able to rotate the lens cap and make it horizontal as you please, once your bokeh filter is on the camera.

There you have it! Your own cinematic custom bokeh filter for a few bucks!

Last but not least, do not forget that to get the most evident bokeh you’ll always need to keep these 3 very simple rules in mind and try to apply all of them when shooting for bokeh, and you will become a bokeh king like myself!

1. Use the brightest lens you have and use it wide open (with the smallest numer, set to that number) 2.0, or  1.8,  or even 1.4
2. Stay as close as possible to the subject, as close as your lens allows you to focus that is!
3. Try to keep your subject as far as possible from the highlights in the background that will become your bokeh, move the subject when you can the further for the background, or position yourself somewhere else so the background will be further from your object.

Please see some other bokeh shots of mine here at www.nolaPIC.com and click on the gallery named “Bokeh Addiction”.

Photo taken with (my favorite lens!)  Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM @ f1.4 and a Canon EOS 5D Mark IIwhich is by far my favorite lens.

Canon EOS 7D Available!

October 24, 2009: Finally Amazon is delivering the new Canon EOS 7D! The body only is now available as well as the Canon EOS 7D Kit with the 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens

Get yours while you can and enjoy its killer new features, I could use a better autofocus myself and the 8 fps speed!

Since I were once worried myself about the Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM AF speed and I hate reading charts and numbers, (they do not really tell me how a lens performs in the real world) I have finally found the time to do a quick and empirical autofocus speed test, using the lens coupled with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II body. This quick animated gif may help people making up their minds and fork out the hard earned $ once and for all.
The Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM AF speed is indeed slower than “regular” Canon L Ultrasonic lenses, but fast enough for the average user and even faster than I actually thought… really! Considering that the autofocus on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II it’s quite old and slow ( the camera shoots at only 3.9 frames per second) the quick test showed and confirmed that you can be assured you can achieve decent AF results, I would be very interested in seeing a similar test done with a Canon body with a much faster autofocus and fps like the 1DM3 or even with the new Canon 7D since its newly re-designed autofocus . The images were shots wide open at 1.2 by the way, so you know they have been shot at the shallowest DOF possibile. The SUV is approximately moving at 45 MPH and I used the center AF which is its only cross point. The animated Gif is slowed down a bit so you can see the focus is dead on.

If you are shooting portraits with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM
or with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM I would strongly suggest you order and install the Canon Eg-S super precision focusing screen which only takes 2 minutes to install!

Please see my other post about it here, with details from Chuck Westfall.

Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans

To see  more New Orleans photography and purchase high quality prints please visit www.nolaPIC.com

Matassa's Market in the French quarter of New Orleans

Thanks to a very low humidy record during the past  weekend (unheard of  for Louisiana in August!), I shot a few (IMHO) great images with the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, at the Hale Boggs Mississippi River Bridge in Luling , LA and in the French Quarter in New Orleans, LA. The small slideshow doesn’t do any justice, since the images should be really viewed at larger size to fully appreciate the feel them and the dreamy bokeh. Open edition prints are for sale and available from 8″x12″ to very large prints sized @ 20″x30″ and can be ordered and shipped in USA and Europe.

These pictures in the flash gallery below and other prints of images taken in Louisiana (New Orleans French Quarter ) and other areas can be purchased at nolaPIC.com

Please be sure to always check out my gallery of available images nolaPIC.com since new photos are added on a weekly basis and may be harder to find on this blog.

The embedded gallery below from nolapic.com is named
“Bokeh Addiction“.

These pictures in the flash gallery below and other prints of images taken in Louisiana (New Orleans French Quarter ) and other areas can be purchased at nolaPIC.com

The embedded gallery below from nolapic.com is named
“The River“

To see  more New Orleans photography and purchase high quality prints please visit www.nolaPIC.com

Click Image

I need some very photogenic and cute kids between  2 and 8 years old too.

You must be in the Metairie area (or you’ll need to drive here) and willing to sign a release form for you or your kids. Pics will be taken outdoors in Metairie or New Orleans depending on type of shoot.

Thank you in advance…I look forward to hearing from you!

Did a run for a few hours yesterday at the Lake Lawn Cemetery, it was incredibly HOT, but I managed to get a few killer pictures before I had to run away from the heat! I need to go back soon in the morning since they open at 7 am.

The images can be viewed and purchased here (look for the “New Orleans Cemeteries” gallery). Open edition high quality photo prints, in 5 sizes to choose from and/or framed.

Getting ready now to go to New Orleans for the Michael Jackson Second Line celebration, please come back tomorrow to see some photos!

High quality open edition prints of the New Orleans cemetery Lake Lawn (and others) are now available at my e-commerce enabled site www.nolaPIC.com

To see  more New Orleans photography and purchase high quality prints please visit www.nolaPIC.com

The Canon Eg-S Focusing Screen helps a lot too and I’ d suggest you get it if you have a Canon 5DmII too. It’s only $45.00 from Amazon but keep in mind that the Super Precision Matte screen improves the ease of focusing when doing manual focus, but it’s not recommended for use with lenses slower than f/2.8. With these slower lenses, the viewfinder will actually look darker then with the standard Eg-A screen.

If you do install the Canon Eg-S precision matte screen, do not forget to change the  C.Fn IV -5 setting to match the focusing screen type. This is to obtain correct exposure.

The full  frame sensor of the 5Dm2 and its depth is a dream come true! Picture taken @ 1/2000 sec.  f 1.2 ISO 400. Click thumbnail to see a larger image.