Sunday Stills-Bokeh (November 27th)

This weeks Sunday Stills challenge comes from Trapper Creek Daughter.  She’s taken some amazing photographs and has a very well written tutorial on moon shots.  Here’s the next challenge;

I recently joined a Flickr group dedicated to bokeh and while I was going through the archives looking for some candidates to submit, I got the idea for the challenge.  

From Wiki: “Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas.  However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image.”  Bokeh is not just for DSLRs with fast lenses.  While bokeh is easiest to create with a DSLR due to their larger sensors, it is not impossible to do with a point & shoot.

Bokeh is created in one of two ways. A short focal length between the camera and the subject and wide aperture (small number, i.e. f/2.8 if your lens will open that wide) while keeping the background as far away as possible.  A long focal length between the camera and subject, and the widest corresponding focal length while still keeping the distance between the subject and background as large as possible.  A longer focal length will increase the depth of field – a larger focus plain – so the background would have to be farther away than with short focal lengths, otherwise it will all be in focus!Bokeh generally falls into two main categories: Hollywood style and cream cheese. Here are some examples of each:

Hollywood style;

Cream Cheese Style;

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