A Visual Guide to Bokeh

My 2009 Canon photo 5 package

Every year I participate in the Canon EOS Photo 5 Competition in Australia. It’s basically a competition where you sign up, register for a ‘photo5’ box and wait for your mail for 5 creative briefs. Last year, one of the 5 briefs (hence the name, photo 5!) provided 3 bokeh ‘hoods’ to inspire competitors to create experimental depth of field photos. Canon uploaded a video to YouTube with some awesome tips on how to use the bokeh hoods, tips on which lenses to use, things NOT to do and some technical aspects of bokeh. Check it out:

If you’d like to recreate these experimental images, you can create your own bokeh hood with a few basic materials.

More on the Canon Photo5 Competition

While registration for the 2010 photo5 has closed, the competition has one brief that is open to all in the public. This year, the open brief is titled, “Inspired by Sound“, and asks for entrants to listen to a sound clip, and creatively translate that into an image. [NB: Open only to Australian and New Zealand photographers].

Happy snapping!

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Filed under: DIY, Night Bokeh, Tips, Video Tutorials, Australia, bokeh, bokehlicious, Canon, competition, photo5, photography, tips, video tutorial