Custom Photo Bokeh: A How-To Geek Guide
Creating Custom Bokeh Effects with a DIY Lens Hood
The aesthetic quality of bokeh – the pleasing, blurred areas within a photograph – is a significant element in visual storytelling.
It’s possible to influence the characteristics of bokeh through various techniques. We will demonstrate how to craft a personalized bokeh lens hood using readily available, inexpensive materials.
Understanding Bokeh and Lens Hoods
Bokeh is defined by the aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas in an image. Different lens designs and aperture settings contribute to its appearance.
A lens hood’s primary function is to prevent unwanted flare and improve contrast. However, it can also be adapted to shape the bokeh itself.
Materials Needed for Your DIY Project
Constructing a custom bokeh lens hood doesn’t require specialized equipment. The following materials are all you’ll need:
- Cardboard (a simple cardboard box will suffice)
- A craft knife or scissors
- Tape (masking or duct tape works well)
- A pen or pencil
- Optional: Decorative paper or paint
Step-by-Step Construction Guide
The process of building your custom hood is straightforward. Follow these steps for optimal results:
- Measure and Cut: Determine the diameter of your lens and cut a circular piece of cardboard slightly larger.
- Create the Extension: Cut a strip of cardboard to form an extension from the circular base. The length of this strip will influence the bokeh effect.
- Shape the Aperture: Carefully cut out the desired shape for your bokeh – hearts, stars, or any other creative form – into the cardboard extension.
- Assemble and Secure: Attach the cardboard extension to the circular base using tape, ensuring a secure fit.
- Test and Refine: Attach the hood to your lens and experiment with different shapes and lengths to achieve your desired bokeh.
Experimenting with Shapes and Sizes
The shape and size of the aperture you cut into the hood directly impact the resulting bokeh. Larger apertures create more pronounced effects.
Different shapes will yield unique bokeh patterns. Don't hesitate to explore various designs to discover what suits your artistic vision.
Final Thoughts
This DIY project offers an accessible and affordable way to experiment with bokeh and add a personalized touch to your photography.
By manipulating the shape and size of the aperture in your custom lens hood, you can unlock a world of creative possibilities and achieve truly stunning results.
Understanding Bokeh: Definition and Visual Characteristics
Each photograph possesses a depth of field (DOF). This refers to the portion of the image that appears sharp and in focus. Elements positioned too close to the camera, or too distant from the lens’s focal point, will be rendered out of focus.
Consider portraits with softly blurred backgrounds, or nature shots featuring a subject in flight against a hazy backdrop of foliage. These exemplify the impact of depth of field. Only the object at the focal plane is crisp; everything nearer or farther is intentionally blurred.
Our focus lies on the out-of-focus areas of the image. The Japanese term for this, and the most widely used, is “bokeh,” pronounced “boh-ka.” Historically, American photographers have also described it as the “circle of confusion” or “blur circles.”
However, “bokeh” more accurately captures the concept explored in this guide. It extends beyond merely identifying what is in and out of focus—as “circle of confusion” does—and instead encompasses the entire out-of-focus region. This includes the quality of light and the influence of the lens and its aperture on the shapes of blurred highlights.
Essentially, bokeh is a term that fully embodies the aesthetic quality of a blurred background. The accompanying image, captured by Kevin Dooley, effectively demonstrates both depth of field and bokeh highlights.
The Role of Aperture Blades
The shape of the blurry highlights in bokeh is determined by the shape of the aperture blades located within the lens. Different manufacturers design apertures to create varying bokeh effects, ranging from geometric and angular patterns to more circular forms.
Portrait photographers frequently favor specific lenses due to the subtle influence the aperture has on the background aesthetic of their images.
This tutorial will guide you through creating a custom lens hood with a unique shape cut into it. This cut-out will dictate the bokeh shape, overriding the natural aperture and enabling you to transform the bokeh from a standard hexagon or circle into any design you can create.
If you can locate a craft hole-punch or carefully hand-cut a template, you can create bokeh caps in the shape of radiation symbols, crescent moons, snowflakes, or any other desired form.
Essential Materials for This Guide
This tutorial requires minimal equipment, and many components can be sourced from readily available household items, beyond your core camera gear. Below is a comprehensive list of what you will need to proceed.
- A camera equipped with a lens featuring a wide aperture.
- Several sheets of black card stock or similar opaque material.
- A sharp razor or craft knife for precise cutting.
- A ruler or straight edge to ensure accurate measurements.
- A pair of scissors for general shaping.
- A roll of dark-colored tape, such as electrical tape, for securing components.
- Optional: A craft or scrapbooking hole punch for creating specific shapes.
- Optional: A cylindrical object, like a can, matching the diameter of your lens.
- Optional: A cutting mat to protect your work surface.
During the creation of this guide, a Nikon D80 camera was utilized alongside a Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens. Lenses with larger apertures are particularly well-suited for this project.
The 50mm 1.8 lenses commonly available for most SLR cameras represent an excellent and affordable option. A wider aperture will generally yield superior results. Interestingly, a standard soup can proved to be the most valuable tool in our process.
A small can of condensed soup, closely matching the lens barrel diameter, was discovered in the pantry. This served as a robust form for shaping and taping the lens hood, preventing deformation during construction.
With all necessary tools assembled, you are now prepared to begin this engaging DIY photography project.
Constructing a Custom Lens Hood
The process of building a lens hood is straightforward, but precision and careful measurement are paramount. Ensuring a light-tight seal is crucial for optimal results in this photography project.
Creating an Interchangeable System
While a fixed lens hood is possible, crafting an interchangeable model offers greater versatility. Instead of permanently attaching a single shape, we designed a viewfinder-style cutout. This allows for easy insertion and removal of different bokeh templates.
This approach simplifies the use of craft store paper punches. It’s more manageable to feed a narrow strip of card stock through a punch than a larger diameter disc. Let's proceed with the detailed steps.
Preparing the Barrel
Begin with a sheet of standard computer paper or any scrap paper. Wrap it around your lens barrel and mark the circumference and height with a pen.
Unroll the paper and transfer these measurements to black card stock. Cut out the barrel piece. Wrap the cardstock around the lens barrel (or a similarly sized can) and secure it with tape. The fit should be snug, yet allow for easy removal.
Once sized correctly, remove the cardstock and apply black tape around the seam to create a secure hold.
Cutting the Cap Pieces
Next, the two cap pieces need to be cut. Having a can matching the lens barrel’s size is beneficial as a tracing template.
If a suitable can isn’t available, carefully trace around the lens barrel using a compass, or utilize the previously made lens hood barrel if the cardstock is rigid enough. Regardless of the method, two circular pieces are required.
Creating the Viewing Window
With the two circles cut, use a ruler to draw a 1” square in the center of one. Align the circles and carefully cut through both with a razor knife. This should result in two cap pieces, approximately 3 inches in diameter (depending on lens size), each with a 1” square opening.
Assembling the Hood
Affix the first cap piece to the top of the cardstock barrel using small strips of tape. Ensure a complete seal by taping all around and pressing firmly. Slightly overlap the electrical tape for added security.
Place the second cap over the first, aligning the squares. Leave a 1.25” opening on opposite sides of the square. This gap is essential for sliding in the bokeh templates, as illustrated in the image.
Reinforcing the Structure
Now is an opportune moment to reinforce the entire structure. If the hood isn’t already on a can, slide it on now. Wrap the entire barrel with tape, verifying the seams are sturdy and the tape is well-adhered.
Crafting the Bokeh Templates
Cut strips of the same card stock, measuring 3.25” long by 1.25” wide. This width is suitable for the 1” window, but adjust to fit your lens, ensuring easy insertion and removal of the slides.
Use a craft punch to create bokeh shapes. We used a star-shaped punch, but you can also cut out shapes like smiley faces or Christmas trees with a razor knife.
Template Size Considerations
The size of the cutout is critical. A cutout that is too small will significantly reduce light intake, resulting in underexposed photos. Conversely, a cutout that is too large will make the shape less distinct.
For a 1.8 lens, a width of 15-20mm is a good starting point. Adjust accordingly for lenses with different aperture values (e.g., 3.5f). If you must err, a slightly larger cutout is preferable, as a softer bokeh highlight is better than insufficient light.
With your shapes prepared, it’s time to test your custom bokeh hood!
Exploring Custom Bokeh Effects and Backgrounds
The holiday season provided an ideal starting point for our investigation, specifically the living room environment. Christmas lights offer excellent opportunities to generate attractive bokeh highlights. As demonstrated in the image above, we captured the Christmas tree initially with a standard lens, and subsequently with a bokeh lens cap featuring a star-shaped insert.
The initial photograph revealed highlights mirroring the lens aperture’s shape – a nearly perfect circle. Conversely, the second image showcased how the bokeh template overrides the aperture’s form, resulting in star-shaped highlights.
Aperture Settings for Optimal Bokeh
Achieving the desired effect hinges on utilizing the lowest possible aperture setting on your camera lens. If your lens’s minimum aperture is f/3.5, set it to that value. Should it extend to f/1.4, maximize the aperture to f/1.4. A wider aperture will intensify the prominence of your chosen shapes.
Conversely, a narrower aperture diminishes the effect; at double-digit aperture numbers, the highlight shapes will likely disappear entirely.
The Christmas tree cutout we created was somewhat small and challenging to produce, particularly when using a razor knife on cardstock. Nevertheless, it effectively illustrated that the shape cut into the template directly influences the resulting bokeh highlights.
Smiley faces proved to be another easily achievable bokeh option. The star shape yielded the most visually appealing results, largely due to the precision of the craft punch used in its creation. Access to a wider variety of craft punches can be gained through crafting or by connecting with avid scrapbookers.
Alternatively, local scrapbook stores may offer in-house work areas and materials for customers to experiment with. Visiting such a store could allow you to create a diverse range of templates.
Beyond abstract light patterns, a crucial test involves photographing people. We enlisted a willing assistant and utilized flash to conduct several test shots. Fine-tuning exposure settings is necessary to balance the subject in the foreground with the bokeh highlights in the background.
When properly executed, the results are exceptionally pleasing. Why settle for circular highlights when stars are an option?
It’s important to acknowledge that commercial alternatives exist to the DIY bokeh hood we constructed. Initially, custom bokeh was primarily a DIY endeavor within online photography communities.
However, as its popularity grew, several companies began offering commercial bokeh kits.
Commercial Bokeh Kits
The Bokeh Masters Kit currently represents the most cost-effective and versatile option available. For $25, it includes a holder, 21 shapes, 8 blank templates, and a storage case. If you utilize the Lens Baby system, a set of 9 bokeh discs can be purchased for $20.
This is a reasonable price for Lens Baby users, but less economical if a $150+ Lens Baby lens must be purchased separately. For simple effects and the satisfaction of a DIY project, however, our tutorial remains a compelling choice – our total expenditure was only a few dollars for card stock.