Dec 6, 20203 min read

Bokeh by Saranya Padmanaban

ISO 80, SS 1/4000, Helios Manual focus

Hi, I am Saranya. I live in England with my husband and 2 children. I love to travel, capture pictures of my kids, landscapes, still life, basically everything. I am a technique addict, so I like playing with my camera and some accessories to find some new creative techniques to have fun. The best time to do this I feel is December. There's magic in the air and it's a great time to add some little extra magic in our pictures too.

Camera and Equipment - I use a Sony a7rii and my go to lens for good bokeh is 70-200 f2.8. I love to play with my lensbaby Sol 45 and my helios vintage lens for some creative bokeh effect. For getting a good bokeh a prime lens with a wide aperture is ideal, but bokeh depends on both a wide aperture and the focal distance between the subject and the background, so a long lens like my 70-200 works wonderfully too.

191mm, F2.8, SS 1/1250, ISO 200

Background Bokeh - to get a good background bokeh I make sure that my subject is as far away from the background as practically possible and then with my aperture wide open (widest the lens will go) I shoot. I try to have the bokeh covering as much of the background as possible.

Foreground bokeh - Another fun way to play with bokeh is to have it in the foreground instead of the background. For this I hold the fairy lights really close to the lens and have the subject sitting away from the camera. Because the focus is on the subject and the aperture is wide open the foreground blurs creating a beautiful bokeh. The same applies to any situation with wide aperture. In the attached images of the leaves I got down on the ground and shot with the ground in front of the leaf out of focus. Morning dew drops with sunlight hitting them created the beautiful bokeh in front of and behind the leaf.

I have also attached a small video of me shooting foreground bokeh with fairy lights. Find it here.*

Creative lenses - Lensbaby

Sometimes I like to use creative lenses like my Lensbaby Sol 45 or Vintage Helios 44-2. Lensbaby has a tilt shift effect, which makes the bokeh look very interesting like you can see in the attached images. The focal plane is very thin because of which the image looks dreamy.

Creative lenses – Helios

Helios is a vintage lens from Russia from it's Soviet Union era. You can find used ones from Amazon or Ebay. The bokeh effect in this is quite unique. It has a swirly effect. Unlike modern lenses the images with helios aren't tack sharp, so you need to learn to embrace the imperfections a bit. What I do love about this lens is the lens flare it produces. Not only with sunlight, but even with small sources of lights like fairy light it produces beautiful flares the exact colour of the light when the light is held close to the lens. In the video I have attached where I am holding the lights close not only did I get foreground bokeh but also foreground lens flare.

Helios manual focus with the fairy lights held close to the lens. ISO 2000, SS 1/125

Overlays - Sometimes I like playing with fun overlays to add a little extra something to the images. I don't usually overthink these and sometimes these might defy logic, but isn't being logical always boring? I have my own bokeh overlays created. Am attaching a few of my bokeh overlays Jpegs in a separate folder. Feel free to download those and use in your images. I also like to get some free creative png files from websites like www.pngtree.com.

Chandelier ring - This small glass ring (as seen in picture) is less than 2 inches in diameter. I hold in in front of the lens and frame the subject within the ring. Since it is made of glass it disperses light beautifully creating a magical effect. I generally like to use this around christmas lights with multiple colours. Golden light also produces a beautiful effect.

These are some of the creative techniques I love to use while playing with bokeh. When I get bored with my images, using one of these techniques always adds a little spice to them. I hope you find these useful and use them in your own work.