Did you know you can change the shape of your bokeh by cutting out paper shapes and placing them over your lens? Maybe you did. I didn't, though, and found out about this simple trick from DANIELS (the guys who brought us this music video), in their mini-video for "Who Do You Love" by Sue Scrofa. Hearts, shapes, letters, entire words: you can make your background highlights appear in the shape of anything you can cut out with scissors.
Get some stiff black paper/posterboard, cut out circles the size of your lens diameter (leaving a tab with which to hold/remove the cutouts), and use scissors or an X-ACTO knife to cut out your desired shapes. Hold the paper in front of a lens with a large aperture (i.e. any fast prime). That's it! There are also some more tips below for properly centering the shapes.
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[image by Gianmaria Veronese]
