Achieving the Bokeh effect

A few people in my photo group have been playing with an effect called Bokeh. This is where the background of an image is so out of focus that lights and bright parts of the image become pleasing soft blobs of colour. So I wanted to learn how to do it. One way is to post edit the effect in using editing software, but to me that's kind of cheating. I wanted to learn how to take photos that have a bokeh effect by using my camera settings. The key is achieving a shallow depth of field so that the background is out of focus. This can be achieve by using the aperture priority setting on your camera which makes your aperture wide and getting as low an f number as possible. With my 18-55mm kit lens I could only get as low as f5.6 most of the time. It also helps to have as much distance between the foreground and background as possible.

My first attempt was with some fairy lights in my room, it's not perfect. I think it would have been better with a lower f number and if the lights were further away. But I think it's a good start:



I read that a good way to practise is to focus solely on achieving the effect and so have nothing in the foreground. I had a practise in my living room when I noticed the light coming through the window. This was Mr Nikon on auto:



And this was Mr Nikon on aperture priority, I had to increase the ISO to 800 to get enough detail since it was quite dark. The shutter speed was 1/15th of a second and this pushed the f number down to 5.0. I love the effect.



One of my friends in the photo group convinced me that bokeh with natural sunlight was easy to achieve. So when we went out for a family walk with the dog I had a play.

First of all I wanted to see how it works outside in natural light. It seems really odd taking a photo completely out of focus, but that's what I did with these trees.



Being happy with that I tried to get something in the foreground that was in focus. I forgot to say that with a zoom lens like the one I was using you're best at the highest zoom. There were plenty of pretty nature things to use as subjects












I need more practise to get one of my kids in the foreground (they don't stay still for long enough for me to fiddle with manual focus) but I did manage to get this one of the dog which has a slight bokeh background. I'm quite happy with my efforts, but definitely need more practise.



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All images are owned by Nicola Dawes unless otherwise stated