First Bokeh C & C

[Tailgunner]

I was out by the lake looking for some Monk Parrots but couldn't find any. So I ended up playing around with the Bokeh effect.


(Queen Ann's Lace)



Nikon D7100
Nikon 28-70mm f2.8
auto ISO 1400
70mm
1/1250 F/13
Manual focus

 

[o hey tyler]

Well, firstly. Bokeh is the term used for the aesthetics of out of focus areas. It's not technically an "effect," but more of a product of lens design, subject distance, and focal length. There can be creamy bokeh, or there can be harsh bokeh. Heck, there can even be mirror lens bokeh which is pretty offensive to the organic optics in your noggin.

As far as the photo goes, it's shot on an unnecessarily high ISO. The subject couldn't have been moving too much to warrant a 1/1250s shutter speed. Also, why did you decide to go with f/13? Using a larger aperture would have generated a smaller depth of field and had more pronounced circles of confusion.

 

[Tailgunner]

Well, firstly. Bokeh is the term used for the aesthetics of out of focus areas. It's not technically an "effect," but more of a product of lens design, subject distance, and focal length. There can be creamy bokeh, or there can be harsh bokeh. Heck, there can even be mirror lens bokeh which is pretty offensive to the organic optics in your noggin.

As far as the photo goes, it's shot on an unnecessarily high ISO. The subject couldn't have been moving too much to warrant a 1/1250s shutter speed. Also, why did you decide to go with f/13? Using a larger aperture would have generated a smaller depth of field and had more pronounced circles of confusion.

Thanks for the heads up on terminology, effect was merly used for short.

As for settings, I'm not sure what went on with the ISO, it was set to auto. I tryed shooting with a slower shuttle speed but couldn't achieve the same results and was just experimenting with the F-stop.

1/620
ISO 740
F13

 

[o hey tyler]

Well, firstly. Bokeh is the term used for the aesthetics of out of focus areas. It's not technically an "effect," but more of a product of lens design, subject distance, and focal length. There can be creamy bokeh, or there can be harsh bokeh. Heck, there can even be mirror lens bokeh which is pretty offensive to the organic optics in your noggin.

As far as the photo goes, it's shot on an unnecessarily high ISO. The subject couldn't have been moving too much to warrant a 1/1250s shutter speed. Also, why did you decide to go with f/13? Using a larger aperture would have generated a smaller depth of field and had more pronounced circles of confusion.

Thanks for the heads up on terminology, effect was merly used for short.

As for settings, I'm not sure what went on with the ISO, it was set to auto. I tryed shooting with a slower shuttle speed but couldn't achieve the same results and was just experimenting with the F-stop.

1/620
ISO 740
F13

The shutter speed will have no effect on your depth of field. But a small aperture like f/13 will. Try opening it up to f/4 and taking the same shot again. You can use a lower ISO as well, 400 is probably a good place to be.

 

[Tailgunner]

Well, firstly. Bokeh is the term used for the aesthetics of out of focus areas. It's not technically an "effect," but more of a product of lens design, subject distance, and focal length. There can be creamy bokeh, or there can be harsh bokeh. Heck, there can even be mirror lens bokeh which is pretty offensive to the organic optics in your noggin.

As far as the photo goes, it's shot on an unnecessarily high ISO. The subject couldn't have been moving too much to warrant a 1/1250s shutter speed. Also, why did you decide to go with f/13? Using a larger aperture would have generated a smaller depth of field and had more pronounced circles of confusion.

Thanks for the heads up on terminology, effect was merly used for short.

As for settings, I'm not sure what went on with the ISO, it was set to auto. I tryed shooting with a slower shuttle speed but couldn't achieve the same results and was just experimenting with the F-stop.

1/620
ISO 740
F13

The shutter speed will have no effect on your depth of field. But a small aperture like f/13 will. Try opening it up to f/4 and taking the same shot again. You can use a lower ISO as well, 400 is probably a good place to be.

Thanks, I'll switch it to manual ISO just to be safe.

 

[kundalini]

Tyler is spot on with the reason to open up your aperture for the bokeh effect. This will have a greater effect when the sensor-to-subject distance is rather short and the subject-to-background distance is rather long. Even though the bokeh is decent at f/13 for your flower, try it at f/4 as suggested.

The only time I use auto-ISO is when I want to keep a minimum shutter speed and not have to fiddle with adjusting the ISO manually. Otherwise, I keep it at the native (ISO200 in my case) for shots such as you've shown, even though ISO1600 on my cameras come out fairly decent. However, there are times I set it to ISO800, such as street or events, and just let it rock.