NATURAL BOKEH

2007.01.15 @ 18:18

(4)

A lot is said about the bokeh effect in photography (and simulated in 3D CG), but it may not be commonly known that it’s something that can happen any time light passes through a small aperture, not just within a lens. The other day while I was in the back yard, I noticed the same thing as light was passing from the sun down through leaves in the trees above and casting beautiful patterns as each point of light spread out to become a disc shape on the ground below. I had to take a photo of it, and I bet there’s some kind of irony in that. :)

As far as simulating bokeh is concerned, we now have an incredible new Defocus node in Blender’s compositor in the upcoming 2.43 release, for simulating depth of field blur. I did a bit of testing while it was under development, and for the most part, it does an excellent job. Big thanks to Alfredo de Greef for that one.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous Debris, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

« Help Needed | linux.conf.au open day »

Reader Comments

Rocketship / 2007.01.15 @ 20:19

If you ever get a chance to see a total eclipse of the sun, look at the ground! Its fantastic - the same effect as a camera obscura - any aperture will project a reversed image of the eclipse, very sharp.

cheers,
RS
Jakub Steiner / 2007.01.16 @ 03:31

So is it now possible to have node parameters’ IPOs? Or is the small animation using the time node hack?
Jakub Steiner / 2007.01.16 @ 03:34

Nevermind, looked at the .blend file and found it’s taken from the camera property. Awesome stuff.
Stephen Johnson / 2007.02.15 @ 05:45

I have a shot just like yours but the circles have been reduced to thin crescents due to a partial solar eclipse over the uk a few years back. Cool site btw!