I had two photo plans for today. One was to follow @jasonbarnette 's tutorial from yesterday on shooing Christmas decorations with lights. That was a fail. First there was this annoying shadow in the background of the animal, then I was able to get a good photo of the animal, but not the surrounding lights. I then moved everything to a darker location because I thought that would allow me to get the lights better. It did, but then I couldn't get the animal's face bright enough. Eventually I just gave up and took a photo of the lights in a bokeh attempt. I don't really like it, but oh well.
This is an SOOC photo, shot on manual mode with a ISO of 800 with f 2.8 and exposure of 1/50
try setting your camera too macro setting putting the lights as far back as you can then if you want to add a decoration like a ornament in the photo this can be done on macro as well with the ornament being in focus and the lights being out of focus. but good attempt!
I tried today with a bit more luck than you and my ISO was 100. Did you light the object that you wanted to focus on? That seemed to make all the difference for me. love all the festive red here, in any case
This isn't too bad. You didn't quite capture bokeh, which is more like out-of-focus orbs of light. You captured a very nice abstract here with the lack of focus.
The true tip for getting great bokeh is to have your lens way, way out of focus. The more out of focus, the more likely those lights will appear as round orbs rather than shapeless blobs.
@jasonbarnette
You've spent days telling me I need to work on getting my photos in focus, and now you're telling me to not be in focus. Ironic. lol.
Thanks!
@jasonbarnette
Um, because I like to make things difficult? lol. I don't know, I was just trying to capture the light from an ornament, you like did yesterday, and it was a massive fail, so I went with this.
I love how your caption explains everything about a shot that you didn't post, lol. I like this for the Christmas'y abstract look to it, but yeah, this is one time when you want to try manual focus on your camera, and then DON'T be in focus. Still, you got some lovely colours here.
@pwallis
Hey! I explained about the ISO and stuff for this shot. lol. I love how my caption explains everything that went wrong with that shot and then @jasonbarnette asks what happened. lol.
Manual focus and be out of focus. I think I can handle that. lol. I'll try again after I get more Christmas lights up. Thanks!
quite abstract and colorful. Your camera settings are just fine. What you need to do, is to take some subject (like a Christmas ornament). Put it as far away from the christmas lights as possible. Then compose your shot : focus on the ornament and align yourself so that the christmas lights are behind the ornament. Take a pic. Now the ornament should be in focus and the background is filled with out-of-focus christmas lights = bokeh. If your subject is dark, you can try some out-of-frame lighting with lamps or maybe using flash with something in front of it to reduce the power.
Or, you can just simply shoot your christmas lights in manual focus mode. Fill the frame with lights and shoot. Play with the manual focus and see how the bokeh gets bigger as you get more out-of-focus.
I will give that a try next time. Thanks so much!
So, how bad is this one?
The true tip for getting great bokeh is to have your lens way, way out of focus. The more out of focus, the more likely those lights will appear as round orbs rather than shapeless blobs.
You've spent days telling me I need to work on getting my photos in focus, and now you're telling me to not be in focus. Ironic. lol.
Thanks!
Um, because I like to make things difficult? lol. I don't know, I was just trying to capture the light from an ornament, you like did yesterday, and it was a massive fail, so I went with this.
Either I was able to capture the decoration really well, or the lights on the decoration really well, but not both.
Thanks Trina! What exactly do you mean by light the object I wanted to focus on?
Hey! I explained about the ISO and stuff for this shot. lol. I love how my caption explains everything that went wrong with that shot and then @jasonbarnette asks what happened. lol.
Manual focus and be out of focus. I think I can handle that. lol. I'll try again after I get more Christmas lights up. Thanks!
Or, you can just simply shoot your christmas lights in manual focus mode. Fill the frame with lights and shoot. Play with the manual focus and see how the bokeh gets bigger as you get more out-of-focus.
I will give all of those a shot once I get more Christmas lights up. Thanks!
I tried again today. Another epic fail. :(