The coolest thing about the Internet is stumbling upon something you had no idea was even possible. That was my reaction when I came across the Do-it-Yourself Bokeh tutorial on diyphotography.net. The technique basically involves creating a lens hood with a custom shape cut into it. There’s no problem shooting like this as long as the lens’ aperture is set fairly wide and the hole is cut large enough - about 15mm in the example.
The cool part comes when the hood is used to take a photo of a bunch of small, bright light sources like Christmas lights, for example. Each point of light turns into the shape cut in the hood. Again, something I would have never thought about but seems to make sense in theory.

The example photo from diyphotography is below. I haven’t tried this myself yet, but it certainly looks worth a shot. Let me know of any other galleries using this technique - I’d be interested to see. It’s a pretty neat effect for only an investment of a few cents.

Image from diyphotography.net.

Like what you see? Join our newsletter.