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!

I had great fun with this today, all my shots were done against a dark background, very stage managed, then this happened by fluke when I went to visit my son with his new daughter...
f/1.8 1.8sec 50mm ISO-100


So, as today is Valentine's Day, here is a heart of circular bokeh

Sheep f1_8 1_4000sec 50mm ISO1600


And here are some hexagons
f5_6 1_400ss 50mm ISO100


I liked the star effect I got on these
lights f11 4sec 50mm ISO100


Here is a link to the others I uploaded, I took lots more, but these are the best
http://www.flickr.com/photos/craig_pixie/sets/72157623433967098/

Looks great fun and you have some fantastic examples of the Specular Highlights. What a special valentines day for you all.

Specular highlights - got some great round highlights - but struggled with getting a decent hexagon shape of a smaller aperture:


1/2s f11 ISO:400



Can see some really nice round highlights for these two shots:
1/10s f3.5 ISO:400

lego man in lights.......



F8.0, 3, ISO500



F22, 1.3", ISO500



........the lights were created by shining a light through a sieve.

i enjoyed making up the mini studio but i got some funny looks as i dissapeared upstairs with a sieve and loads of lego!!

Struggled this week to get time to look at this, lots of time in Birmingham

Anyway, I also struggled to get the hexagons! See: http://cid-58258f5ff68f2470.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Wk%205%20Specular%20Highlights

I must get myself a nifty-50! Bridget - would that help by reducing the DoF and throwing objects more out of focus?

I had another go with shutterspeed though - with more luck: http://cid-58258f5ff68f2470.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Wk%204%20Seeing%20the%20creatively%20correct%20exposure
At 2s the spokes have just gone & it looks like the bike has no wheel!

No time to work on my ShutterBugs portfolio either So I've uploaded a few photos from over the years: http://cid-58258f5ff68f2470.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Portfolio?uc=1&isFromRichUpload=1

A few more web pages that I've used frequently over the past few years. Sure you guys will find these useful too:

Ken Rockell's infamous huge site; kit reviews, advice & recommendations: http://www.kenrockwell.com/
Moose Petersen (famous wildlife photographer): http://moosepeterson.com/blog/
Camera ranking: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/DxOMark-Sensor - see how your camera compares to the best!
Cheap raw conversion software for optical correction: http://www.dxo.com/uk/photo
Learn PhotoShop/Bridge/Lightroom basics (free): http://tre.emv3.com/HM?a=DNX7CkWfYere8SA9MOOadQrnGHxKRi3f4g8g
Nikon training (incl D40/D60/D90/D5000 etc courses): http://www.nikon.co.uk/Training/about/venues.aspx?vid=1 (I've done the D80 1 day course & it was excellent - cost about £130 though)
Mark Cleghorn training (incl PhotoShop/composition/exposure etc) http://www.markcleghorn.com/training/seminars/monkey-business-4-wedding-flow
Thomas Hogan's site: http://www.bythom.com/index.htm

By the way Focus On Imaging is on at the NEC in March: See http://www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk/


If anyone is interested in the Nikon 18-200 talked about last night, then Ken Rockwell has a review here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18200.htm. My expereince of this lens is that is a great general purpose lens, but it does suffer a little with distortion - but only at either end of the scale. However, I use DxO Optics Pro as my RAW converter and this auto-fixes the distortion. See http://www.dxo.com/uk/photo/dxo_optics_pro/new_in_V6 for more info. It's not too expensive (they run offers if you sign up for their email - about £60 ish), does a great RAW conversion and helps remove high ISO grain too. (and no I'm not on commision!).

Looks like your second childhood has arrived Faye, its amazing what you can do with a little lego man and a sieve. Good examples of spectacular highlights, your second shot looks like you managed to get the start of the hexagons.

If you want to have another try at the spectacular highlights Martin then the nifty 50 would help as its a much sharper lens, but you also need to place a subject infront of the lights and focus of the front plane item then using the aperture controls take the shots to change the shape of the background lights.

You have some good examples of movement with the bike wheel, good use of camera controls.

Many thanks for posting the links, these will be of good use for everyone and if anyone wants to go to focus then this is a good place to see all the latest equipment.

Martin you have some very impressive portfolio shots, my favorites have to be the last robin shot and bike shot. Great use of your camera, I also very much love the line of tree reflections. Stunning work.