bokeh

Depth of Field Explained

When you focus your camera, the area around the focal distance will also be in focus. But this can fall off to blur quickly or slowly. The acceptable amount of in-focus area around what's you are focusing on is called depth of field.

Creating ‘Bokeh Madness’ with a Tilt Lens Adapter

After using a vintage 1910 lens on a modern Sony a7II, Paris-based photographer Mathieu Stern is back again with another interesting lens experiment.

This time he created "bokeh madness" by attaching a Russian Jupiter 9 85mm f/2 lens onto his Sony a7II using a M42-to-E tilt adapter.

Trioplan 100mm f/2.8 Rebirth will Bring ‘Soap Bubble’ Bokeh to Modern Cameras

Since Globell Deutschland revived the Meyer-Optik-Görlitz brand, they have been committed to continuing the legendary engineering of lens optics that began in 1896. As of late, they have introduced a number of high-quality lenses designed and crafted in Germany. Now, Globell wants to breathe life into a modern 100mm f/2.8 Trioplan ‘soap bubble bokeh’ lens, a piece of glass known for its unique bokeh. The company has launched a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign that has already raised more than $250,000 to bring this lens back to life.

Review: Yongnuo’s 35mm f/2 Lens for Canon EF Packs a Punch for the Price

When it comes to the world of Nikon and Canon, there seems to be an endless selection of lenses. Recently, the Chinese company Yongnuo has announced that they will be manufacturing lenses for both of these camera giants. Today, we had a chance to play with the company’s latest YN 35mm f/2 lens for Canon EF mount systems. At $120, the lens sounds like a steal compared to its official Canon counterpart, but is it worth even that price?

35mm or 50mm: Deciding On Your First Prime

In one of those rare more-informative-than-funny Top Gear DigitalRev episodes, Kai tries to help beginners decide what they should buy for their first prime: a nifty 50mm, or a more versatile 35mm.

No Bokeh? No Problem! These Out of Focus Backgrounds Hold You Over Until You Get that Fast Lens

Want a blurry background for your portraits on-demand, whether or not you're using a fast lens? Or maybe you are using a fast portrait lens, but you want to shoot with it stopped down to the sharpest possible aperture without sacrificing that beautiful bokeh you're going for.

Well now you can now do that without having to put serious distance between your background and subject. Just pop up one of Lastolite's new Out of Focus Backgrounds.

Fuji Releases Bokehlicious Updated Lens Roadmap for 2015

Late last night, Fuji released an updated version of its lens roadmap, switching some things around, adding a lens to the lineup, naming the 'ultra-wide angle lens' from the previous roadmap, and otherwise letting X-Mount shooters know what they're in for glass-wise through the end of 2015.

And what they're in for, by the looks of it, is lots and lots of bokeh.

Not All Bokeh is Created Equal, DigitalRev Explains Why

Defined by Google as, “the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens,” Bokeh is a term that has become much more prominent in the past ten years or so than ever before, thanks to the photography community.

Introducing Bokeh, a Mobile Lifeblogging App for Saving and Sharing Moments

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you may have noticed that our news editor DL Cade has been running the show as of late. Here's the reason: for the past 3-4 months, I've been hard at work building a new website and service -- one that we're finally revealing to the world today.

It's called Bokeh, and is a mobile lifeblogging service that lets you save and share all of life's little moments through an easy-to-use app and easy-to-browse website.

Video: Making Creative Use of Focus to Capture Ethereal Firework Footage

In the past, we've shared a few creative ways to take your fireworks shots to the next level. Be it shooting hand-held long exposures for an abstract result or refocusing during a long-exposure, the results can be quite stunning.

The video above combines a couple of techniques we've shared before, making wonderful use of bokeh and the refocusing technique to create a mesmerizing minute of footage.

Magical Photos of Insects Shot Using Ordinary Household Objects

The photographs in Nadav Bagim's project "WonderLand" might look like paintings or computer generated images, but they're actually real photographs captured at home using ordinary objects and creative artificial lighting. His tools and props include things like vegetables, plastic bags, flowers, and leaves, and he captures the images using a Canon 60D and 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. Getting his "subjects" into the positions and poses he wants requires countless hours of patient encouraging.

Floating Light Words with Custom Bokeh

Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher had the brilliant idea of using custom bokeh to spell out words in his videos, and spent a good amount of time developing and perfecting the idea. The above video, titled "Light Works", is a demonstration of this technique in action. The results are pretty awesome.

MIT Scientists Stuff Barcodes into Bokeh

Barcodes can be found everywhere, but using existing barcode systems with ordinary cameras require that the barodes be printed large or that the camera be placed close to the code. MIT's Bokode project is a new system that magically stuffs barcodes into bokeh, allowing ordinary cameras to be used as barcode readers from a distance. The codes are contained in little points of light that only turn into codes when viewed through an out-of-focus camera lens. You've probably seen how little bright points of light grow into larger and fainter points of light when you defocus.