Bokeh Photography Tips (3 Basic Tips on How to Blur The Background with Examples)

Every photographer is crazy about bokehs. We all wanna blur our backgrounds, right? So let’s see how to do it more creatively.

We are gonna try some bokeh photography guys. Bokeh is the quality of out-of-focus or “blurry” parts of the image rendered by a camera lens. Simply put, bokeh is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus blur in a photograph. Bokeh comes from the Japanese word boke (ボケ), which means “blur” or “haze”. A good bokeh pleases our eyes and our perception of the image and therefore, the background blur should appear soft and “creamy”, with smooth round circles of light and no hard edges. There are 3 ways to get a pleasing bokeh:

Use a Fast Lens – To achieve bokeh in an image, you need to use a fast lens—the faster the better. You’ll want to use a lens with a recommended aperture of f 2.8 or lower. But if you have a kit lens like me or you are a beginner, then you need to go the lowest aperture that your lens and surrounding allow you.
Distance – To increase the likelihood of creating visible bokeh in your photographs, increase the distance between your subject and the background. Also, decrease the distance between the camera and the subject. If you have the subject very close to the background, the background is bound to be visible and if your camera is very close to the subject, you will get more bokeh.
Focal Length – The greater your focal length the more bokeh you will get. That is why my 70-300mm lens will give me more bokeh than my 18-55mm.

So let’s get creative with our bokeh photography in today’s tutorial.

I have some fairy lights. I have placed them on a black cloth that I have taped to the wall. By using manual focus I will keep them off focus so that I get beautiful bokeh. Let’s reduce the exposure compensation so that the background and wires are less visible.

I will use the same fairy lights. But this time will keep a slow shutter speed like ¼ or 1/8 secs and zoom in while I click. So that I get a nice motion blur in the camera for the lights.

Same fairy lights. I have placed them behind a glass and will click this shot.

I have this beautiful potted plant at home with even more beautiful pink flowers. Let me put on my Raynox and click a macro shot.

Butterflies are the kind of subject I want with my bokeh.

Bokeh photography is very useful to make my subject stand out and avoid unnecessary distractions in my image. It really works for portraits and wildlife, but please avoid using it in landscape or architecture photography, where you want to focus on the entire scene and not just a particular subject.

I hope you liked my blog. Do let me know your suggestions and thoughts in the comments section. Thank you!

Also Read – Leading Lines in Photography