You don’t need to be an expert or take a photography course so you can learn some of the basic concepts and techniques for making spectacular shots. Technologies now provide us extraordinary opportunities in our hands, which are often a click away to learn how to use them. In the following rows I will introduce you one of the most common and most desirable shooting techniques – shooting with bokeh.
What is Bokeh?
The easiest explanation of Bokeh is that it is an aesthetic blur in the out-of-focus parts of an image and it is produced by a lens. The very name comes from the Japanese language – 暈 け or ボ ケ and in itself means blur.
The Use of Bokeh
The use of this technique is extremely popular due to the fact that pictures with it are very pleasant to the eye. Basically portrait photography takes advantage of it. However, as we can see on many social networks, this shooting technique has gained immense popularity for any type of photography. The applicability of the bokeh is unlimited – from taking a portrait, still life, a pet photo, shot of an autumn leaf ready to fall from the tree or an image of flower in the middle of the meadow. The overall idea is that the object stands out on the blurred background.
Technical Requirements
It is already clear what this technique is and what it is used for, you probably used it repeatedly even with your smartphone, but you did not know what it was called. Another important thing for truly beautiful bokeh is the technical characteristics of your lenses.
In Brief: The open aperture has a shallow depth of focus, allowing most of the objects in the frame to be out of focus and more of these objects to be converted to bokeh shapes. In other words, use a fast lens, since the aperture impacts the depth of field. The best lenses are with apertures of f2, f1.8 or f1.4. Personally, I use the budget Canon 50mm f1.8, which is great for the price.
How Should I Take the Photos?
There is nothing complicated, just place the object you want to stand out and select a suitable background that will give the best desired frame when blurring. Match the colors, brightness, depth of field, and the composition of the photo, think of every detail and try different combinations and angles. Everything from here on to getting wonderful pictures is in your hands and your imagination … literally.
Here are some of my photos of different bokeh types. I hope to bring you inspiration for your own future masterpieces.
