Day 7 / 365

Bokeh is the blur in the out-of-focus area of an image, thus bokeh occurs in the area of the image that lies outside of the depth of field. The shape of the bokeh is determined by the shape of the aperture ring, which in my case is round. When I first stumbled upon the technique of bokeh, I went back into my older photos and noticed that some photos did have nice bokeh, but it's not something I ever consciously tried to create in an image. Clever use of bokeh can create some immensely creative images, and at the least it can add some interesting background effects when applying a shallow depth of field.

Usually, aperture rings are round. One can purchase lenses that are specifically designed for creating bokeh effects that have an interchangeable aperture, which is of different shapes. The aperture ring is what opens and closes to let in more or less light for exposure of the image. A wide open aperture lets in the most light but also creates the most shallow depth-of-field (often used in macro and portrait photography), while in landscape photography one usually uses an aperture setting of f/11.0 or lower to obtain sharp detail throughout the entire image. To get back to the shape of the aperture ring - the shape of the bokeh is the shape of the aperture opening. So if you have a heart shaped aperture opening, the bokeh will be heart shaped. In other words, the bokeh can take on any shape as long as you can dream it up and create yourself a lens attachment for it. Supposedly one can even create a card-board cutout and attach it to the front of the lens (large enough to not restrict the field of view of the lens) as a means of changing the shape of the bokeh. I have not yet tried this out myself, but it's something I will definitely do sometime soon.

What I noticed when I took the shot below is that creating bokeh can be harder than you would imagine - it is not just an accidental effect or even one that shows up anytime you use a shallow depth of field. Through trial and error I found that out-of-focus bright light reflections create great bokeh, such as that of direct sunlight on moving water or leafs slightly blowing in the wind. In fact, bokeh is better during the day when the sun is high, providing a technique which to employ outside of the golden hours of photography.

For my first intentional use of bokeh I am quite pleased with the result. However, what I would critique on this shot is the loss of bokeh toward the top left of the image and the lack of bokeh along the bottom of the image. The way this flower was situated, I was not able to create perfect bokeh all throughout the background range, but I think it is a good start.

I am not quite sure what the deal was with the bumble bee. It was moving only slightly, so I am not certain whether it was intently sucking nectar or got stuck in the bulb. In either case, it made a perfectly still subject, which I have found in the past nearly never happens with bumble bees.

1/125s @ f/10.0 ISO 200