Depth of Field creates the blurry background that you will often see in photos. Bokeh is the quality of that creamy blurry background. My favorite bokeh shots are not the daytime ones… they’re the nighttime shots. Here’s a shot of neighborhood house lights a block away from our house. I thought it’d be fun to frame the bokeh in a fun goofy way. How do you re-create this effect? Easy… just set you camera Aperture to the lowest F-stop number you can and zoom out as far as you can. The lower your F-stop and the farther your zoom… the more creamy your bokeh will be.
For this shot, we took out a simple umbrella and speedlight and used the 50mm f/1.8. The bokeh didn’t spread out as much as we’d like (house lights weren’t spread out enough)… but nonetheless we got the effect we were looking for. This is where I wish we had a big zoom, these shots would’ve produced bigger better bokeh lights.
yummy bokeh
flick the bokeh
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LOL
i love these! they’re so silly. they capture both of ur sillyness and happiness 
oh man, u guys read my mind…..i was just thinking on doing some photos with those broken lights, and was wondering how u actually do it to make it happen, usually when it happens for me, it’s by chance hehe thank u for the tip!
these shots are cute!
pretty kewl effects with the bokehs. Have you tried any photos around speeding lights like night traffics????
This is so cool!
Hi, what was your aperture and shutter speed setting for this night shot while just using a flash and umbrella? I’ve tried using my 430 exII flash w/ a 42″ silver umbrella w/ my 50mm f/1.4 lens (canon) and I can’t ever get any good photos that I crave for!!! Please help and give me advice, I’m still learning w/ strobist style, but I don’t understand the flash power coordination w/ the camera settings.
Hi Gaochia,
The photo settings were: f/1.8, 1/20sec, ISO 800. Take a look at our recent post about night time photos… it will hopefully help you better understand flash power and exposure.
http://www.prettygeeky.com/2010/12/24/faq-friday-night-time-photos/
I’m glad to see some type of feedback from more experienced and professional photographers because usually, comments are ignored!
Anyways, for the photo, what was the flash power, which I guess is my main question. I still don’t understand how to correlate the two together…
Also, for the beach photoshoot you did of the woman and man, you used only the flash head. How did you get the lighting to not be so harsh on the subject and have her/him being well lit? Was there some type of diffusing involved and was the flash power higher or lower? Ahhh I have so many questions!! I just don’t want to overload and blow up your blog haha!
I don’t remember the exact flash power setting, but flash power is one of those things that you have to gauge yourself on your LCD as you take the photos. I usually start at half power then adjust as needed.
With the beach shot, the direction of light and balancing flash with ambient really becomes important. Add just enough flash from the proper direction to light them without casting noticeable shadows.
In the end, it’s just all about practice, the more you do, the better you will get… And feel free to ask away anytime you have questions. Thanks for visiting.