**Note: This post contains affiliate links. It does not cost you any more money if you purchase one of the items here. I may make a small commission if you do. **
Last week on the blog I shared the ornament I got in the exchange I participated in. In one of the pictures, the lights in the background looked like heart. Today I wanted to show you how easy it is to create those bokeh shapes yourself.
If you wanted, you can purchase this lens kit. I don’t currently have it (it may make it onto my birthday list), but if you wanted to purchase instead of DIY, it’s an option.
Now, to get the fun bokeh shapes you will be making a cover that goes over your lens (I recommend a 50mm fixed lens for some good bokeh). You’ll want to use a dark shade of paper to do this.
ONE
Start by tracing your lens cap.
TWO
Draw the shape you want your lights to be in in the center of the circle.
Then, cut out the shape and circle. You’ll want to cut the circle just slightly bigger than your lens cap so you can slip the whole thing over your lens.
THREE
Next up, cut a long strip of paper about 1/4″ high. You are going to be attaching the circle you just cut out to the strip so that you can slip it over you lens cap.
FOUR
After you are done, use tape (masking tape works, but I wish I had used black electrical tape) and tape all around the seam. Then slip it on your camera.
You may notice mine has a tiny tear in it. That’s because I didn’t make it quite big enough (which is why I told you to cut the circle slightly bigger than your lens cap). It still works just fine though.
Now that you have your bokeh “lens” made, it’s time to start snapping pictures. To do this you going to want to set whatever you are taking a picture of about three-five feet away from the tree. That way you can focus on the item, and the Christmas tree lights will be blurry in the background.
See how the bears are about five feet from the tree? I then knelt behind the bears (about 2 feet) to take the following picture, with my aperture set as wide as it can go (check out my photo series if you have no idea what I mean when I say aperture).
Here is another example. The car was on a table, about three feet from the tree, and I got as close I as I could to the car and still have it in focus.
You could also take a picture of just your tree. To get the bokeh shapes you have to purposely unfocus your camera (so if you use your camera on auto, you’ll have to switch it to manual focus). The more unfocused the camera is the bigger the shapes will be.
And there you have it. It’s not too hard to do, and if you have kids who cooperate, you could get some pretty great pictures!