beauty look and foreground bokeh

[francisco santos]

I have been infatuated with trying to achieve this beauty/foreground bokeh look and thus far have been unsucessful. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I assume theres some sort of foreground bokeh/object going on. I tried putting some broken glass infront of a 50mm lens and so on but its not quite the same. Im trying to achieve the look in the 3 clips of the female. Using my available test subject (my son) I kindof get it but its not the same. I know someones gonna say post please dont lol Im all about trying to capture it in camera. One thing is certain the subjects for the most part are back lit but I cant really pin point the indoor shots. :emote_22_yikes::emote_22_yikes::emote_22_yikes::emote_22_yikes:

Cheers,
Francisco

 

[Matt Ryan]

2nd shot looks like a prism/crystal or glass of some sort because of the rainbow effect. 1st looks like cracked glass with some splattering on it. Third just looks like a veiling flare from light bouncing around in the lens (use a mirror to bounce some light into the lens from camera side). Pair that with a low con filter or some classic soft filter. 4th looks like somebody dangled chandelier strands in front of the camera out of focus(you can see a bit of rainbow effect again so it's a glass or crystal object..

 

[francisco santos]

I think the 2nd one is just particles falling Im just gonna try experimenting with some different foreground elements. The kid is my son that was my attempt to mimic the look odviously the color palette plays into it all but the overall contrast and so on. I guess i just need to keep trying other foreground objects I didnt know if they made any filters or if it was soething im going to have to jimmy rig.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Last looks like when you put a lens in front of the glass.

I am with matt...

It is fun to work on ways to break down an image in a constructive way...

 

[Matt Ryan]

You can also try lens whacking for the 3rd image. It's basically creating light leaks.

http://philipbloom.net/2012/02/01/the-art-of-lens-whacking-real-lights-leaks-and-ones-done-in-post/

 

[Tom Van]

I agree with Matt, try lens whacking on an old 50mm and you'll be surprised at the kind of results you get. You should probably try it on a DSLR rather than a RED though.

Also, I often hold a diopter in front of the lens to achieve a similar effect. Of course, these techniques are all about trial and error until you get something you like. Good luck.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I agree with Matt, try lens whacking on an old 50mm and you'll be surprised at the kind of results you get. You should probably try it on a DSLR rather than a RED though.

Also, I often hold a diopter in front of the lens to achieve a similar effect. Of course, these techniques are all about trial and error until you get something you like. Good luck.

We did a bunch of lens whacking on an Epic last summer and it looked great!! Agreed. Its a great, very stunning look.

 

[Karim_Nassar]

if you are not getting the results you want you can always go with the post production route.

I bought a 4k pack from lens distortions.com (the original) and I am very happy with it. Beautiful clips.

The advantage is you get to pick exactly what you want with the exact intensity, placement, size and duration.
Doing it live and analog is also great of course, but this is a great alternative.

check them out:

http://lensdistortions.com/

 

[Björn Benckert]

Maglight / flashlights in the mattbox and some big crystals from your grandmas big old crystals lam p would do. As mentioned above, crackglass in the mattebox makes wonders.

Edit: and as Karim mention, You can also shoot some against black. then apply it with same clip as matte and front as additive. Then you can control the levels of the glares and stuff. If you make them nice. They are quite hot as stock footage.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I did some distortions here for "Big Sur" by flicking some water drops on a fog filter before we rolled:

On this shot, I also used a Lensbaby as well:

For some shots in "Smash" we had a 1'x1'x1" block of polished acrylic that we put on the edge of the lens, at an angle to catch reflections:

 

[Bob Gundu]

Great tips there David!

 

[francisco santos]

I did some distortions here for "Big Sur" by flicking some water drops on a fog filter before we rolled:

On this shot, I also used a Lensbaby as well:

For some shots in "Smash" we had a 1'x1'x1" block of polished acrylic that we put on the edge of the lens, at an angle to catch reflections:

Awesome! Thanks Guys! David which lens baby did you use? I love the screen prints they are so surreal!

 

[John Brennick]

This is one of the best threads I've seen thus far. Thanks for all of the info. Beautiful work David!

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Great thread. You could always get some colored diamond glass, put it right up against the lens on a side, and whala, you have colored OOF bokeh.

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/colored-glass-diamond.html

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I have the basic original Lensbaby with the flexible rubber bellows -- with moving pictures, you generally want to be able to manually shift the lens and see the changing distortions, as opposed to a still photo where it's easier to set the tilt and lock it off. I have a PL-mount version and had another one converted to PV-mount for when I'm shooting on Panavision cameras.