My first attempt was with some fairy lights in my room, it's not perfect. I think it would have been better with a lower f number and if the lights were further away. But I think it's a good start:

I read that a good way to practise is to focus solely on achieving the effect and so have nothing in the foreground. I had a practise in my living room when I noticed the light coming through the window. This was Mr Nikon on auto:

And this was Mr Nikon on aperture priority, I had to increase the ISO to 800 to get enough detail since it was quite dark. The shutter speed was 1/15th of a second and this pushed the f number down to 5.0. I love the effect.

One of my friends in the photo group convinced me that bokeh with natural sunlight was easy to achieve. So when we went out for a family walk with the dog I had a play.
First of all I wanted to see how it works outside in natural light. It seems really odd taking a photo completely out of focus, but that's what I did with these trees.

Being happy with that I tried to get something in the foreground that was in focus. I forgot to say that with a zoom lens like the one I was using you're best at the highest zoom. There were plenty of pretty nature things to use as subjects



I need more practise to get one of my kids in the foreground (they don't stay still for long enough for me to fiddle with manual focus) but I did manage to get this one of the dog which has a slight bokeh background. I'm quite happy with my efforts, but definitely need more practise.

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All images are owned by Nicola Dawes unless otherwise stated
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