How do you Bokeh?

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

If the subject is far away and you are using a long focal length ( 300mm ) you would get blur. Using long focal lengths creates a much shorter DOF.

yes and no... if your subject is far and standing right in front of the wall, you wont get much bokeh as the background is close to the subject.

- distance from subject to background (further = more bokeh)
- focal lenght (longer = more bokeh)
- aperture size (wider = more bokeh)

So for max bokeh, shooting a long focal range (say 200mm) with a wide aperture (say f/2.8) and have the subject stand further from the background

Yes, but the background would not have to be AS far as it would be with a shorter focal length, hence the "much shorter DOF." I should have clarified.

 

[Derrel]

Wikipedia ...

In photography, bokeh (pronounced /bɒkɛ/[1]) is the blur,[2][1] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,[3][4][5] in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."[6] Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting—"good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively

"The way the lens renders out of focus points of light." No,no,no,no, a thousand times no; that is NOT a prerequisite to bokeh. The way a lens renders out of focus highlights, or points of light, is only one aspect of bokeh, but in this the age of "everybody's a photographer", out of focus light source renderings have become synonymous with bokeh. Wikipedia is a lousy place to go to find definitions of esoteric or scientific or technical concepts; quite often Wikipedia is the blind leading the merely sight-impaired.

The main problem with Wikipedia is that it allows so many individuals of the numbnuts level of training, to define words and concepts and ideas, erroneously.

 

[xjoewhitex]

Sometimes its just better to go out and start shooting to really understand something, rather than trying to wrap your mind around something you read on the internet. Its quite an easy effect to achieve and could be done with about any lens. Your 50mm will do great, opening it up to its widest aperture taking a photo of something close with the background some distance away. The further the distance between your foreground, subject, background the greater the blur.

This can be done at a distance, with your 50mm but at a wide aperture your subject wont be perfectly sharp.