BOKEH - a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image.
Hi! My name is Lubko Davidovich, I’m a photographer. Today I’d love to share with you my little series called “Bokeh Exercises”. It’s about beauty of details, elements, small pieces of nature. We used to admire mountains, seas, waterfalls and all the monumental landscapes, but I believe nature greatness is present in tiny things as well.
The main and the only idea here is mood. I tried to capture the feel, the smell, the spirit of every season.
Most of these images were made by me in 2012-2014, although there are also some newer and older ones. Actually that’s a collection of my works during last 4 or 5 years. Hope you enjoy it : )
Back in 2009, I was very influenced by Moaan’s photographs. Works of this modest Japanese guy became my inspiration for years, I even can say he is in some sense my teacher. Combination of his really uncommon talent with insane Leica Noctilux (and whole bunch of other top lenses and cameras) resulted in amazing bokeh images with unique, recognizable style. Although I have never even dreamed about Leicas, there was a big desire to do something similar. The same 2009 year, I changed my old point-and-shoot camera to my first DSLR (Canon 40D + Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens). Since that time I started my “bokeh exercises” :) It took several years to refine the style. Now I’m focused mainly on fashion and architecture, but bokeh photography has its specific “soul”, that makes me to return again and again.
“Landscape with the Moon” (5D Mk II + Canon 50mm f/1.4)
”Spring In Town”
“Summer Heat” (5D Mk II + Canon 50mm f/1.4)
Few years later I got Canon 35mm f/1.4 lens, and then – Canon 5D Mark II, which is my camera till now.
By the way, here is one of my first shots on 35 1.4L. That lens have unusual, but funny “onion” bokeh. This effect is sometimes considered imperfection, but at least in this particular case the “onion” pattern is so symmetrical and well-formed, that it can be used as an artistic device in some cases (I will tell you more about some exotic kinds of bokeh in my future posts).
There is a little hint: it becomes noticeable only when you mount the lens on body with APS-C sensor or smaller (1.6x, 2x crop factor and so on). The lens is designed to mount on full-frame cameras, that’s why smaller sensor crops only the center of the image, what leads to magnifying, “zooming” of bokeh circles too, making the structure of every circle more visible.
“Blue Balance”, 2009 (35mm f/1.4 + Canon 40D. 1,6x crop factor )
You may also do this trick everytime you want to make your lens bokeh more attractive. It especially works well with lenses that already have relatively interesting (but maybe not so stunning) bokeh.
Just remember, crop factor of your camera must be significant (compared to lens original design and destination). It looks like 2x cropped sensors give the best results – the size of the bokeh circles is greatly increased, and the circle’s shape tends to be more clear and unique for every lens. Once I tried such thing with old and cheap soviet Helios, and got almost Leica-like bokeh! : ) Maybe that’s one of the few advantages of cropped bodies over the FF, and another interesting way to use them. But for the serious work, or when you want to achieve the purest tones possible combined with noiseless image, full frame camera is a must-have (I’m not talking about the medium format now, that’s another story and another level). Basically I shoot at 200 ISO, which is considered as the clearest for my 5D Mark II (every camera has it’s “native” ISO setting that gives the best results, you should check yours).
”The Fire” (5D MkII + 50mm f/1.4)
The First Snow
”Azurite Dreams”
Most of pictures in this post were taken with 5D Mk II+35mm f/1.4 or 5D Mk II+50mm f/1.4, and the second combination I find the most suitable to making typical, classic bokeh images. Fast 50mm on a full frame body gives nice picturesque background, while lenses with long focal lengths usually give a simple blur, not artsy bokeh (in other words, there is “too much bokeh” with them :D ). On the contrary, wide-angles have greater depth of field, and its usually hard to get decent bokeh using such type of lens.
When you’re a bokehmaniac, you should look for the “middle range” (from 35mm to 85mm), that’s the easiest way to get the needed results. Its interesting, that almost all bokehlicious lenses (Canon Dream Lens 50/0.95, fast Minolta Rokkors, Helios-40, Leica Noctilux both f/1.0 and f/0.95 etc.), belong exactly to that range. Only some 100-135mm lenses are the rare exclusion (like Pentacons or Meyers), but again, it’s still relatively close to the mentioned above focal range. The further you go from the middle, the less atractive bokeh you get.
My 35mm f/1.4L is slightly less capable of swirling or “making bokeh circles everywhere” than traditional 50mm f/1.4. However, bokeh of 35mm is more shiny, polish and delicate, as expected from L-series. The next important thing in this particular genre is the lighting. You have to find spotted light sources. Of course, nightshooting and car/street lights will be the most obvious choice, but soft natural light might be even better. For example, the light that is breaking through the leaves or branches can produce very creamy and soulful pictures. When this type of light gets into out-of-focus area, it transforms into the same beautiful bokeh circles. And the final thing is the distance. To achieve the right DOF, and then - good bokeh, you should play with lens-to-object and object-to-background distances, simultaneously controlling the aperture and focus ring. Of course, the closer is the object, the more bokeh you get, but in reality extremely close distances (when you are trying to shoot macro) are not so interesting.
Sometimes I use also my manual lenses, particularly experimental ones, but that’s something completely different and worth of another story :)
Thank you for reading this, I will post some new stuff soon and upload more of my photographic works and reviews: )
Excellent way you took us through the seasons with this post. You might want to consider turning this content into a photo book.
I totally agree on that!
Thank you! That's a good idea, I'll try :)
incredible moods
thank you:)
These are beautiful! The photo of the blue berries really spoke to me. Plants have an elegance about them that makes photos of them so engaging. Your experiments with bokeh have ended up causing some really interesting shots :).
thank you for kind words : )
Welcome