Bokeh Practice with 18-200mm

Today started out as a lumberjack day but some of that wood is real hard to split and my back didn’t last too long. Then the sun decided to almost break through the cloud cover. Good excuse to drop the axe and take the camera out and see if I could put any of that recent experimentation to use.

The 18-200mm lens was on the camera so it stayed. It was a good choice to begin with. The view through the viewfinder is close to what you’re going to get making this type of shooting much easier than a lens with a much wider aperture where the viewfinder image is not the same as the photo.

I was trying to get a similar bokeh effect in all these shots and the results pretty much work for me. In many photos the idea is to isolate the subject. In these I’m trying to place the subject in the strange world of lens bokeh. In other words the subject is supposed to be part of the rest of the scene and the rest of the scene is supposed to be abstract in nature. And hopefully the abstraction lets your mind wander and wonder.

Bokeh Practice 1

Bokeh Practice 2

Bokeh Practice 3

Bokeh Practice 4

Bokeh Practice 5

Bokeh Practice 6

Bokeh Practice 7

Bokeh Practice 8

bokeh Experiments at f5.6

Now doing something similar to last post but this time with the 18-200mm lens set at 200mm and f5.6 it’s maximum aperture.

The 18-200mm lens can focus much closer than the 85mm but doesn’t have that huge aperture. This makes for some different results.

Another big difference is that the colored wires used as the out of focus objects at 10″ are almost touching the lens. The 10″ is the distance to the camera body not the front lens element.

Bokeh Experiments, Foreground
200mm, F5.6, iso 100, 1/6 sec
10″ obstruction, 26″ target

Bokeh Foreground

Bokeh Experiments, Background
200mm, F5.6, iso 100, 1/6 sec
32″ obstruction, 16″ target

Bokeh Foreground

Viewfinder issues were not a real problem what I saw was almost the same as what came out in the photograph. This differed significantly from the 85mm at f1.8 where the viewfinder and photograph were quite dissimilar.

Bokeh Experiments at f1.8

I noticed some interesting effects in a few past shots from the 85mm lens at f1.8.

I set up an experiment to try and figure out what was happening so that I would be able to use this feature on command. The effect had to do with blurring thin objects that were out of focus but in a way that left sharp edges. The sharp edges of a blurred object is something that you would not expect. The result is you get a thin semi transparent object with shape and defined edges. Once mastered, you should be able to use this effect in an artistic manner.

I took many pictures at various distances. From this collection here are two shots that demonstrate the effect.

Bokeh Experiments, Foreground
85mm, F1.8, iso 100, 1/80 sec
18″ obstruction, 31″ target

Bokeh Foreground

Bokeh Experiments, Background
85mm, F1.8, iso 100, 1/80 sec
47″ obstruction, 31″ target

Bokeh Background

The 31 inches to the subject is as close as this lens will focus and the f1.8 is the largest aperture. Various colored wires were dangled either behind or in front of the subject and all illuminated with a 300 watt halogen lamp.

It seems critical that the wire be of just the right diameter and just the right distance. Too thin and it is barely visible. Too fat and we loose the transparency as well as the defined edge.

We do have a significant problem with these type of shots. The image through the viewfinder is not at all like the resulting image. The viewfinder does not show as much out of focus blurring as the resulting photograph, thus you have to guess what is going to happen. This guessing is only going to work if you’ve had lots of practice.

Now I have to come up with a name for this effect, I’m thinking “Boket”.