Week 6 – Aperture & Specular Highlights

Photos can look wonderful when the foreground is in focus and the background blurred, especially when the light sources in the background twinkle like stars! How about customising the shape of the blurs that you see?

The trick to customising bokeh shapes works on the principle that the shapes that you see in the background are basically the shape of the aperture in your digital camera. You might have noticed this if you’ve ever taken a picture at a very high aperture value in daylight - the light sources can appear as stars and these stars are essentially the aperture blades in the lens that you use. Therefore by playing around with the aperture shape we can change the way the light sources appear in a photograph.

In this tutorial we will learn how to create your own bokeh shapes that have impressive results.

The lesson and exercise are found on page 68 of Understanding Exposure

WHAT YOU NEED

Grab something that has lots of little lights. Maybe it's possible for you to dig out those Christmas lights! If not, you'll have to be creative here.

Place an object or your hand in front of the lights. Take a shot while focusing on the object or your hand. You should see some out of focus shapes behind your hand or the object.

TO TAKE THE SHOT

Select a wide open aperture (smallest aperture number).
Take the shot
For Hexagon shapes - f/8 to f/11.
Take the shot.
Note how the shapes changed from circular to hexagonal in shape.

HOMEWORK

Please post 3 examples of specular highlights - you should see circular shapes, hexagons and somewhere in between.

Please feel free to ask questions. You are encouraged to comment on each other's images!

Funfair lights at the weekend. I focused on the tree in front, and took the photos at night from the pub across the road. I'd had a few to drink!!


iso800 f5.6 1/50


iso1600 f5.6 1/50


iso1600 f16 1/50

I had a chance to take some firework shots on Bulb too.

iso200 f4.5 bulb

Great firework shot and even better considering you had had a few drinks lol. Maybe try taking some photos of shop lights and keep your aperture on as low number as possible to get those nice circular lights. You had focused on the correct area using the tree but maybe because the lights were too far behind it lost a little of the specular highlights.

Just one shot from me this week ... the sun kept hiding behind the clouds so I didn't get a chance to play around with different apertures ...


Holly Iso 400 f/4 1/250

Very good example Sam

Wow Sam, i love your holly picture, must try this one again this week