Bokeh and Chickadee

Our little black-capped chickadee joins us to demonstrate bokeh. Bokeh, pronounced like okay without the y-sound at the end, is that pleasant, soft background consisting of circles of different brightness. Maybe is is best to just look at an example.

Ludwig Keck – 2023 – Black-capped Chickadee

Those bright circles are produced here by light filtering through distant trees.

Here is another example.

Here you can tell rather easily what makes the bokeh.

Not sure if the same bird is posing for us here, but it was the same camera and lens that took the photos. The camera was a Nikon D800, but what is more important is the lens, a zoom (AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED), set to 300 mm for both photos.

The size of the circles is created by two settings. The primary one that everybody talks about is the aperture. The bigger the aperture hole, the bigger the bokeh circles. You want to shoot as close to wide open as you can. Both photos were taken at f/6.3, not completely wide open. The size difference here is due mostly to the focus distance. The closer the focus the bigger the bokeh circles. The top photo was at a subject distance, and hence focus, of 2.51 m (about 8 feet), the other photo was taken at 5.63 m (over 18 feet).

If you want big bokeh use a big aperture, (low f-number), get close, use a long focal length, and make sure you have some distant light sources.

Maybe now we know why our chickadee in the top photo looks at us so questioningly. “You are more interested in your background than me?”