Newb attempt at bokeh

[Michael79]

I always liked the bokeh type look, so here's my first attempt at shooting some of it on my own, feel free to comment negative or positive.

 

[joshua_]

Hello, I'm new to all of this too and I also like to practice these things.

I think you missed your focus, it seems to really show up on the phone.

Hope you're having fun with all of this. There's a lot more to it than I ever imagined, but so far that's made it more fun for me.

 

[The_Traveler]

You can't do 'bokeh'; it is an inherent characteristic of a lens - how it renders oof detail.

 

[snowbear]

^This. It's become a mis-used term.

Both of these have some issues, but you are trying something new and that is always good.

The telephone is out of focus - I'm guessing you may have been too close. The candle is good example of compromises that are made in photography. The jar is under exposed, but if you'd shot for that, then the flame would have been too bright & blown out. You just have to decide which is important to you (or use a graduated ND filter.) Again, these are good experiments so keep going but work on the details.

 

[KmH]

You can't do 'bokeh'; it is an inherent characteristic of a lens - how it renders oof detail.

Yep. Bokeh is not adjustable, but depth of field (DoF) is.

OP what you have done is known as using selective focus, or the use of a shallow depth of field.

Bokeh is likely the most misused word in photography, right before the use of the word 'grain' to describe digital 'image noise.

 

[AgentDrex]

Just a note: that second photo (the phone) is in focus (you can tell on the table at the very front of the photo that the phone is indeed within the focal plane), it's suffering from motion blur however due to a slow shutter speed. White balance is way off as well. To fix the blur, find a way to support the camera so you can effectively use a slower shutter speed. As for the white balance: Understanding White Balance