My attempt at Brenizer

Recently I had the opportunity to do a cosplay shoot

and the theme was for Kamen Rider W

but that's for another time

For now I want to talk about the Brenizer method,

This method was named after photographer Ryan Brenizer,

basically it's is just a photomerge 

which is usually used in landscape photography

but this brilliant photographer put the method to use in portraits

and comes out with amazing results...

the main aim is to of course achieve the unachievable bokeh..

or in layman terms the out of focus portion of the photo

Since this is Boleh Bokeh...

every type of bokeh achievable must be tried...

first was my test shot of the pre-Kamen Rider taking a rest

 

not too bad bokeh...

but let's try to Brenizer it...

then by stepping closer and using a longer focal length I took a total of 55 images

and using a simple photomerge programme, I got this

not a pretty picture I must say...

It was painfully obvious 2 fatal flaws in my execution..

1. not enough overlapping (and in fact some missing) portions in the photos

(look at the black portions at the tree and tie and even the leg)

2. the frame of the photo was not properly defined...

(as such some of the photos taken were wasted.. 

and in fact discarded by the programme when merging)

In the end I resorted to merging the photos one by one...

and of course with the magic of photoshop and cropping

I got this

much more impressive but still a failure

but the bokeh of course is nicer having the subject nearer

here compare the two side by side

before                                                                 and after     

main noticable difference is his foot and the grass.. 

the bg looks further too for some reason...

anyway for my next attempt,

I will correct the two mistakes and try a longer focal length

this was taken at 135 mm f3.2 (stopped 1/3rd down for sharpness)

which isn't too bad but the bokeh is of course best at 200 mm 

now if I only had a FF with a 85 f1.2 or the 135 f2 like Brenizer...

well one can dream... :)

Til next time I'll keep trying to Boleh Bokeh!

oh and for those interested,

there's a step by step directions that can be found here