Um, paper filters? Who would have thought!

[Dubious Drewski]

I'm sorry if this is an old concept to you guys, but tonight I just discovered the mesmerizing joys of paper filters for photography! Oh, how can I describe it? Pictures! Yes!

So if you do this,

You get this. And this. And this. These are unmodified and straight out of the camera.

Take a look at my gallery to get more of the story and see some trippy stuff!

Who here has heard of this technique already? Why haven't I seen it in my years of shooting? This is fun! It's very challenging to get any focus at all, especially with a focusing screen(Ironically), because I guess it was not meant to function with a giant opaque thing over the lens. Doing this also stops the light waaaay down(of course) and it gives a very strong tint of whatever colour paper you're using(of course). It also drastically reduces the resolution of your lens(Nothing is quite sharp except the custom-bokeh itself). It's quite a lot of work to get any good shots out of it, but it's really neat.

 

[CanAm]

That certainly is awfully trippy.

Happen to have a template or instructions we can use to try them?

 

[Dubious Drewski]

Well there's no set way to do it. I just placed a filter on a piece of paper, then traced and cut the circle from that(of course any clear filter will work - skylight, UV, etc). Then I used a razorblade to cut into the paper the shape I wanted. The piece of paper sits snugly in the outward-facing threads on my skylight filter. If you have that, then you're then ready to shoot.

The paper should fit into your filter like this.

The real challenges are having to figure out how to focus and expose properly!

 

[Big Mike]

That' pretty cool.

I have read an article about this type of thing. They cut shapes into the paper and then watched as the bokeh took on the shape of the cut out. The one I remember was a heart shape.

 

[Dubious Drewski]

I don't know about you guys, but this really changed my understanding of how lens optics work.

Based on what I've learned here, every tiny bit of the surface area of the lens delivers the full image to the camera. But the bigger the area you allow, the higher the resolution of the lens. The image you see is not just a straight transfer from the outside world, through-the-lens-upsidedown and to your eye. It's aparently much more intricate than that.

It's really fascinating stuff, and I guess this new info makes sense against what I already knew about pinhole cameras.

 

[Mesoam]

interesting...

 

[Meysha]

Mike, do you have a link to the love heart bokeh image???

This is really inspiring stuff, guys!

 

[SpeedTrap]

You can do the same thing with the Lens Babies, they have a creative apature kit that has different shapes

 

[Dubious Drewski]

And you know what's cool? In that image, The background microwave is what I was trying to focus on (To increase the bokeh on the lamp), but because the paper screws up the optics so much, it's impossible to get sharp focus on anything and the microwave turned out blury - BUT the bokeh is always sharp.

So the depth of field looks like it was reversed - the blury thing looks sharp and the supposedly-sharp thing is blurry! I need to do some more experiments with this.

By the way, does this technique have a name? My google-fu is too weak to find anyone else who's done this.

 

[Big Mike]

Mike, do you have a link to the love heart bokeh image???

This is really inspiring stuff, guys!

Sorry no. I think I may have read it as an article on a magzine site...Pop Photo maybe :scratch:

 

[JIP]

When I used to shoot medium-format weddings my boss, an old-timer taught me something like this. I had a rubber lens hood and would cut out the bottom of a large clear plastic jar that acually held pretzels not that that matters but I would cut it out and then cut a circle out of the center a little over 1/2 the diameter of the disc itself. After I cut out the circle I would scuff up the rest of the surface of the disc so I would have a clear circle surrounded by a scuffed up surface. This would act as a makeshif spot filter and make the center clear and the outsides blurry and give a nice dreamy effect.

 

[Jon0807]

Oh no! I'm having acid flashbacks again! :stun:

 

[crystal_lynn]

That is pretty cool. I'll have to try cutting some shapes on one of my scrapbooking tools and see what I can come up with.

 

[Dubious Drewski]

Yes! Everyone do this! And then post them here. I want to see what you all come up with.

 

[Meysha]

Heart Bokey DIY
http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_create_your_own_bokeh

Once you get past their argument of whether its bokeh or vignette, the discussion at the bottem is incredibly interesting and people posted their exaamples.