DIYPhotography.net

It is not often that we see tow of our favorite techniques used in a single film. photographers Colin Mika & Brandon Vedder of All Cut Up Films created this beautiful time lapse of Los Angeles with a twist (or actually two).

The first is that the entire film was shot through a snow globe, which I assume means that the camera was upside down for the entire duration of the shoot.

The second is the use of paper cut filters to achieve a shaped bokeh.

Click to continue ›

When you are looking at your typical slider one of first things you'll check is how smooth it is. Interestedly enough this is also one of the first things you check when you are in the market for a drawer system.

This coincidence did not slip Aron Anderson who used a drawer rail to build a small slider. It fascinates me how creative photographers and videographers come up with clever ways to overcome budget issues.

The slider has a range of about 22 inches and if you can find rails for deeper drawer, range will naturally increase. Aron says that this specific rail was $22 at Home depot but they come smaller and bigger in a whole range of sizes.

Slip and Slide The iPhone slider on trinityfxmg

Shaped Bokeh is that magical thing that happens when you place a hole in-front of a lens. Then every shiny dot turns from this to that.

The word Bokeh comes from a Japanese word and for a lack of better translation we can refer to it as blur. In photography bokeh refers to the quality of blur in the unfocused background, and in this tutorial, Shaped Bokeh refers to a mysterious quality that happens when you place a non circular hole as a new lens filter. If you want to see some great examples you can check here and here. Click to continue ›

I just love those little nuggets of fun.

While I am not the Black Eyed Peas biggest fan (my daughter is, you should here her scream Pump-it! from the top of her lungs) , it is always a nice surprise to see a shaped bokeh featured in a big, hot-shot video.

After last year's Shaped Bokeh appearance in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World which for me marked the beginning of this technique being adopted by serious cinematographers, comes Just Can't Get Enough by The Black Eyed Peas. The video was shot just one week before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the clip encourages donating towards Japan's relief efforts.

Watch for second 54. Full of lovely bokeh hearts. If you are shooting DSLR it is very easy to create that effect using an Exacto knife, or using DIYP's Bokeh Masters Kit. (The video starts 5 seconds before the effect shows).

Switchup.

Switchup! Click to continue ›

There is an ongoing debate in the photography community, if one should use UV filters (or similar "zero effect" filters). I was never a big advocate for any of the camps, but slid a UV filter on all my lenses just in case.

As of this now, I am a firm member of the first camp.

Earlier this month I shot an event and had my D300 + 24-70/2.8 heavily shoved slightly brush against a poll. Luckily I had a B+W haze filter on.

The filter broke completely. I removed it and using a blower made sure that all the small and sharp glass was removed.

While I hate losing an ~$80 filter, I love not losing a ~$1600 lens. And think it is worth paying that little performance degradation.

What do you think? Are you Using protection filters? Click to continue ›

As you probably know DIYP has a small feish for shaped boekh (we even made a kit).

Mike Pan was interested to see if a similar effect can be computer generated. well, it can using blender and cycles. Here is what Mike has to say about it.

It all started with the release of Cycles - a new GPU based (read: Fast) path-tracing (read: Nice) rendering engine for the 3D software Blender. For people unfamiliar with the concept, a rendering engine is a software that turns a computer generated 3D scene into a final picture. A rendering engine has to calculates lights, shadows, surface materials and all the intricate details that make up a believable virtual world. Most rendering engines uses all kind of tricks and shortcuts to simulate surfaces and lighting, whereas Cycles rendering is purely based on the physics of light, which means it is very easy to get photo-realistic renderings like this: Click to continue ›

If you wanna freshen up on the shaped bokeh technique, Makezine has an thorough  video tutorial covered by a text article that you can follow through off-line. DIYP has a kit that takes the work out, but it always amazes me how quickly you can make one of those to win a another effect in your box o' tricks.

If you are still having questions after watching the vid, (yea, you never know just how big that hole should be....) there are some great tips on the Removing The Mystery From The Heart Shaped Bokeh tutorial.

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Neutral density filter reduces the amount of light going into the lens, so you can take long exposures even when the light is bright.

Long exposures blur anything moving, like water, clouds, or people. This can be very useful for making choppy water look smooth, making clouds streak, or getting rid of people at a tourist attraction.

These types of filters usually cost up to $200 (especially on big diameter lenses), but with this simple hack, you can make it for only $5. Click to continue ›

When it comes to Shaped Bokeh, it is all about the shape of the hole where the light goes through. Heart shaped hole creates heart shaped bokeh, stars shaped hole creates stars shaped bokeh and so on....

If you want your bokeh to be a little more elaborate you have to be pretty darn good with an exacto knife. So crude shapes are fine, but what if you wanted to do something more delicate, like writing a word. I mean, even Dr. Shepherd can only get that precise with an exacto knife. (lady readers in the audience?).

Videographers Jimmy Wong and Laurasaurus Rex (Lore), came up with a prety clever way to create delicate bokeh shapes. They used Transparencies (and kinda replicated  my bokeh masters kit in the process - all for a good cause). Click to continue ›

When I first made the Bokeh Masters Kit HDSLRs were very scarce. I never even thought about using it for video. Boy, I was missing out big time!

This is why I was very pleasantly surprised to get this sweet, sweet mail from Ryan Belenzon, directing me to a clip produced for Relax To Paris:

"I shot the following music video with the Bokeh Master Kit.  Thanks for making such a helpful product!"

If you are reading this via RSS, you may wanna click here for the video

I particularly love 1:13, and 1:29. Heck I love the entire clip. Click to continue ›