Macro Photography and Good Bokeh

Bee76 (e2 Member)

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2 Mar 2013 - 11:59 AM

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Hi, I'm hoping some of you photoshop wizards can help with this or if you know another poster who might could you direct their attention towards this post please....

I'm gonna spend some time this year on developing my macro skills - as they are severely lacking. I particularly like flowers and bugs and as well as Mandy D on here that produces excellent work I've also come across Magda Wasiczek whose work I love. I was just wondering how you would reproduce the kind of bokeh that Magda displays in some of her images such as Stories from the Meadow or Blue Rhapsody? There are plenty of others in her work which are different.

Is it all in camera technique or through post processing? FYI, I'm aware of the basic technique of creating a bokeh canvas by creating a bokeh brush and using a new gradient but I've been unable to fiddle with the brush settings to get anything similar to Magda's work so far.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
Barney

akh (e2 Member)

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2 Mar 2013 - 3:35 PM

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Personally I find that it is a combination of camera technique as well as some post processing. The use of large apertures (f/2.8 or f/3.5) will throw the background out of focus but you will need some careful focusing as your depth of field will be quite shallow. Judicial use of Gaussian blur can also help to isolate your subject from the background. For example:



In the case of Magda's work she seems to use some older lenses which could give a softer image and photographing early in the day with all of that out of focus dew lends a magical air to her work.
Tony