Cut Out Bokeh~2nd Attempt

Well on Flikr and DPS this phenomenon of creating your own bokeh has become very popular in the last week. I decided I needed to give it another go. Since my other attempt was so pathetic I studied Amy Rose's version here:here

Here is how I did it:
1. Went down to the basement and found a string of Christmas Lights.
2. Put on my 50mm 1.8 lens. (need the smallest aperture possible)
3. Found a dark sheet and chairs to set it on.
4. Plugged in the lights and draped them over the chair.
5. Found a couple props ie: Aaron's stuffed toys, and placed them in front of the lights.
6. Set my camera to AF and made sure my aperture was 1.8.
7. Took a piece of dark paper and cut it into a square a little bigger than my lens. Cut a notch in the paper so that I could get my punch as close as I could to the center. I realized it wasn't close enough so I started over and cut a deep notch into the square and then taped a piece where I cut out the notch so that when I placed the square paper over the lens the cut out was directly in the center.
8. Taped the square to the lens(in the focus position...it is out away from the camera)
7. Started shooting.

I realized that I couldn't get the lights to turn into bokeh unless the prop (bear) was about 2 feet away from it. I also realized I had to play around with the distance I was from the bear. I actually got the best bokeh by manually focusing, however I could not get the "bear" and the bokeh in focus this way since my depth of field was so shallow. I also realized I needed a little more light than just the natural light from the windows. I made a make-shift reflector out of cardboard and tin foil. It didn't really work that well. A piece of white foam board would have been better but I didn't have any. (Note to self: get some white foam core board.)

After a bit of playing I finally got it right.
I did a little editing in Elements 5. I darkened, burned the edges, and added a texture in one. (The snowflakes are the christmas lights)

Let me know what you think.

Beary Snowy Bokeh


Just Bokeh


Doggy wants it to snow!



Unedited Version


(I left this one in so you could see the depth and how much I did in editing...you can see the chair and the livingroom background. The lights are the xmas lights. I also did this one w/o the black background)