I Dream of Fake Bokeh

I Dream of Fake Bokeh, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

My Sigma 50mm f1.4 is a good lens but it doesn't hold a candle to Kathy's Minolta/Sony 100mm f2.8 Macro lens in the sharpness and bokeh departments.

After seeing some of her great photos of these amber colored Pontiac hood ornaments, I've been on the lookout for them at every car show I go to. She usually finds them first and lets me know where I can locate them.

In this case, Kathy and I had been at the 2012 Uptown Whittier car show for a while with each of us going our own way to seek out whatever treasures the day might bring. Later when we met up again, she told me about this Pontiac hood ornament she had come across. We walked down the street so I could make a few images of it too.

I've noticed that the older the hood ornament, the more cracks it is likely to have. Here it was possible to orient the camera in such a way to capture the sunlight illuminating it's internal structure which had a lot of character.

Later when I went home and was reviewing my images in Lightroom, I could see that the bokeh in my shots left a lot to be desired. Luckily I own Nik Software's Bokeh 2 plug-in. It works great as long as you have a good selection isolating what you want to be in sharp focus from that which you want to be blurred. In this case I think it improved the existing bokeh nicely.