Custom bokeh

I have a rather girly obsession with custom bokeh... the pretty, twinkly kind:

  

I should probably get over it and concentrate on 'proper' photography, but before I do, I had a couple of requests for a tutorial of sorts, so here goes; it probably isn't going to make much sense...!

You will need: a trusty 'nifty fifty' lens - mine's a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 - card, scissors, craft knife (this is very Blue Peter isn't it?), sellotape and a light source e.g. fairly lights, candles etc.

The first thing you need to do is create a 'hood' for your lens. Make a short cylinder which fits snugly around the lens. Tape a circular piece of card over one end of the cylinder but cut a small square from it first. Fix two pieces of card across the top and bottom of this opening to enable you to slot different slides onto the hood.

Create the slides by cutting shapes from a small piece of card - anything you like. I'm a sap so I went for a heart, star and butterfly. You might want something a bit more butch, like a skull...?

Add your chosen slide and place the whole thing onto your lens:

Set up your light source - lots of small lights work really well - I've used both fairly lights and tea lights before. Now the tricky bit (or rather the tricky-to-explain bit because you're going to need to experiment a bit)... 

You need to throw your light source completely out of focus. I've tried both short and long focal lengths (is that the right terminology Dave?!) and I can't tell the difference - they both produce a similar effect. Set the focus to manual and fix it at one extreme. I set my camera to Av mode and f1.8. Look through the camera and move slowly away from the light source until the shape you've chosen comes into focus. 

Take the shot!

This one was a row of tea lights in front of a photo frame which reflected the light

Again this is a group of tea lights in front of a picture frame, but I've rotated it so it looks like they're shooting upwards

This one came out really well - it's a lamp with a single bulb but its cut work shade has split the light creating the tiny hearts in different colours

I really hope it works for you and I haven't made a total hash of explaining how to do it. 

Right, I'm off to grow up...