All posts,  Weather

Warm and fuzzy and hopeful

A visual treat/tidbit for you this afternoon, as we contemplate heading out early in the morning for the family Christmas at the Coast. (We actually has some sunshine this afternoon, leaving us hoping that roads will be dry enough to negotiate if not too much more rain falls overnight.)

The Pioneer Woman is having her annual Christmas Bokeh assignment at her place – now I am clueless when it comes to this kind of photography but decided last night to have a crack at it. I may enter one or two offerings in her contest, but am posting the contenders up here and explaining (in very lay terms) how I did it.

Bokeh, as you may know, is the effect gained when the ‘depth of field’ is very shallow and you get that lovely sharp effect in one part of your photo, and everything else is all ‘fuzzed out’ focus-wise.
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It helps if you have a really low f-stop aperture option on your camera, but you CAN cheat slightly if you have a zoom. My trustly little 18-200mm zoom is not all that aperture-handy, but if I zoom it out at it’s lowest aperture (that’s f5 for camera nerds) I can get something approximating bokeh.

Something to remember: low number=small depth of field; high number = big depth of field

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You can bokeh pretty much anything – get creative and try something nearby… in this case a randomly abandoned Santa hat!

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See how when you have lights in the ‘blurred out’ area of your image, they go all groovy? Neat, eh?

Fairy lights in particular rock this effect…

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All I did for this series of shots was to lay ornaments on the polished table (at my next-door neighbours house) and use natural light coming in from the window behind me – focussing hard on the ornament and letting the lit-up tree in the background become a haze of soft-focus spots.

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I think this one might be my favourite – the little drum reflected in the polished timber is kinda cool.  I might toss it into the ocean of amazing images at PW’s photostream.

Why don’t you try it at your place, and pop a link back in comments here to share some Christmas cheer?

Or if you have entered the assignment already, don’t be shy – share that link to inspire the rest of us.

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Please wish us luck on our adventure tomorrow – for the first time in forever, I am actually praying for a clear night so we can get safely out of the quagmire that is the countryside around our home.  I may schedule a couple of posts for our absence – depending on how my packing goes tonight. (I will definitely be checking in my comments section while we are gone though!)

🙂

BB

7 Comments

  • debby

    BB? If you lived next door to me, up until yesterday, I would not have had a brightly decorated tree OR a polished wooden table for you to set things on.

    Today I do. But I’m not going to attempt bokeh pictures with a point and shoot. You all are welcome to stop by though. The kids could go out and play in the snow. You could bokeh to your heart’s content. Mr I? Oh, I imagine I’d haul him down the road to visit the people with the draft horses. And over to our friend’s buffalo farm…Yeah. We’d keep you busy.

    Merry Christmas to all the granite glen folks!
    debby´s last blog post ..Legacy

  • Leenie

    Hoping for enough sun to make your trip to the gathering possible. Just knowing you and your family would be on a beach would warm things up here.

    I love the bokeh effect in photography. I agree with you. The drum photo is my favorite too.
    Leenie´s last blog post ..GLOBAL WEATHER

  • Catch the Kids

    Lovely shots. The Christmas lights in the background are so pretty. The drum might scrape through by a whisker, as my favorite.

    In related news, yesterday, on Christmas day, Santa left me a Cannon 60D under the tree. I nearly died of excitement! No more point and shoot for me! I feel an addiction coming on. Think I might go and bokeh a little myself(Once I find all the buttons you mentioned – sharp learning curve!)
    Catch the Kids´s last blog post ..Christmas Halleluia orThe Cleaning Was Done By Others

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