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How to create bokeh in your images
Bokeh is becoming popular, this is a tutorial for anyone who is wanting to know how to make it.

Posted by Kath from Bendigo, Victoria, Australia • Published 28th April 2010 • See Kath's 2 projects »

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Step 1
For all the photos in this tutorial I will be using the 50mm f/1.8 lens (for DSLR's), there are other lenses that do the same thing, but this is the cheapest lens you will find as this cost me between $130AUD - $150AUD

But if you have a point and shoot camera which allows you to use manual settings or focus you can try that as well.
Step 2
The photo on the left is a net of christmas lights, which is what i used to create the bokeh, and the photo on the right is what happened when i played with the manual focus, blurred the image and took the photo.
To get the black background you take the photo in the dark.
You might need a high ISO, or to use a tripod so your image doesn't blur.
Pyay around with the aperture, i set it to 1.8 to get the maximum affect.
Step 3
Next we will talk about how to get the Heart bokeh like in this photo.
Step 4
To get heart bokeh, get a black piece of card, and cut out a heart, but it could be any shape you desire, or even use hole punches in different shapes.

You can take photos with the christmas nets like i did, or get creative and try something else.
Step 5
This photo is where I got creative, i used the black card cut out a fish like shape and put it over the lens.

I put the lights in the background so then they would blur, and focused on the cup, and that is how you achieve this.
Step 6
This is a photo I took, and i used an aperture of 2.8 and even then you can see bokeh coming through my personal work in portraiture images.

The lower the aperture the more bokeh that will appear in your images.

Happy shooting and I hope you learnt something, as easy as bokeh is . ;)

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Comments

Knotsu · 11 projects 11th October 2011

This is so helpful!! Thanks for this awesome tutorial! I love your personal work too!

AlE_cupcakesS · Desamparados, San Jose, CR 27th September 2011

LOVE IT!! and what type of camera do you have?

su l. 29th November 2010

thanx so much for sharing your photos are beautiful can we be friends as i have only just joined this site...happy shooting to you...
love Su x

shizuoka · Bogor, West Java, ID · 8 projects 22nd September 2010

this is great! But can be tricky,,,i haven't succeed putting a focus object in front of the bokeh. If I got the object focus, the bokeh is gone

Becks S. · U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado, US · 36 projects 19th May 2010

I'm having the same trouble as Heather. Am I doing something wrong?

Heather M. · 22 projects 16th May 2010

Hey Kath, thank you for sharing this idea!

I made my own version, but I got a limited round area when shooting, the corners are all black..I dont see your photos having the same... Is there something I didn't do correctly?