Holiday Photos | DIY Shaped Bokeh

I wanted to show you some fun shaped bokeh photos I took last year but never blogged about it here at listgirl.com yet.  I have blogged it at The Lilypad and Write.Click.Scrapbook., but I always want to bring my articles back to my site so that they are in one place.   :-)

The holidays are here! What a perfect time of the year to do some fun photography with tree lights! Today I’m going to show you a quick and easy way to make some DIY templates to take some fun shaped bokeh photos!

I followed this tutorial at kevinandamanda.com. Why re-invent the wheel, right? Amanda gives step by step instructions on how to construct the paper hood that goes over your lens.

All you need are: black cardstock or construction paper, scissors, tape, repositional or temporary adhesive, and some small shaped paper punches.

I made this paper hood that goes over my 50mm F/1.8 lens. Yes, the tape is ugly but it works just fine! Then I cut out pieces of cardstock that are bigger than the “window” on the hood. I punched shapes in the middle of the cardstock pieces.

The hood fits right over my lens like this.

Then I applied temporary/repositional adhesive to one side of the punched paper pieces so I can adhere each piece onto my paper lens hood and use them.

Put the manual focus on something very close to the camera, as close as you can get without the object being blurry. The background will blur. The bokeh here is round. This is what it looks like without the paper hood on the lens.

I used the star punchout on the paper hood.

Camera settings:
50mm F1.8 lens on manual focus and manual mode
F/1.8
1/15 sec shutter speed
ISO 1600

Heart punchout on the paper hood.  I held two candy canes in front of the tree, and focused the camera on them.

50mm F1.8 lens on manual focus and manual mode
F/1.8
1/15 sec
ISO 800

Swirl punchout on the paper hood.

50mm F1.8 lens on manual focus and manual mode
F/1.8
1/15 sec
ISO 1600

And Christmas tree punchout on the paper hood.

50mm F1.8 lens on manual focus and manual mode
F/1.8
1/15 sec
ISO 1600

Isn’t that cool? Of course it would look super-awesome with some different colored lights on the tree too. And if you have willing subjects such as children or pets, you can put the focus on them and have the bokeh in the background. I made the paper lens hood and punched pieces in about 10 minutes, so it’s super-easy to do! These photos will make fun pages in your December album, Project Life, or any scrapbook page about the holidays!  :-)

Give it a try!