Control the Shape of Your Aperture

I have done absolutely no editing to this photo. All I did was resize it to put online. That is it. What are those funky little stars? Good question.

I love this trick because it is so crude, cheap, and creative. I first saw this trick on the Do It Yourself Photography website, then saw what is effectively the same trick on the Popular Photography website in an article about the talking about a Lensbaby Gadget Kit.

There seems to be debate about what to call this trick, whether it changing the bokeh or adding a vignette. I do not really want to get into that here. I can say what it is doing though. It is changing the shape of the aperture in your camera. Instead of that pseudo-round, geometry shape on blurs in the out of focus regions, you can control what shape they become.

With a Lensbaby lens, this is all different, because you can actually change the aperture ring itself with a shaped aperture. Most folks are not shooting Lensbaby lenses, so I will stick with the altered “normal” lens…whatever “normal” means.

Basically, by opening up the aperture all the way (this probably requires a large aperture lens to pull off), then sticking that shaped “aperture” on the end of the lens, the light coming through your lens goes through the paper aperture you just stuck on the end of your lens and totally misses the aperture which is built in to your lens. It really opens up the creative possibities in your photography!

My photograph is not the best or the most creative, but just one small example. I love how it looks like an impressionistic painting.

If you want to learn how to do it, take a quick read through the instructions on the do-it-yourself website mentioned above. I would also suggest visiting the PopPhoto site so you can see a few more examples of what changing the shape of the aperture can do.