Last week I asked why we bother with camera filters. With enough skill in Photoshop or some other image editing software, you can do anything a filter does, right?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. Some things simply have to be done in-camera. Yes, given enough time, you can probably replicate most effects in post-production - but it’s just too damn tedious. Sometimes, you have to go low tech.

Take the following image, for example:

I don’t think anybody would want to manually reproduce the heart shapes in Photoshop - I know I wouldn’t. Something like that simply has to be done in-camera - and that’s where a filter comes in.

Mind you, a filter like this isn’t expensive. You don’t need to amass a whole box (or tupperware) worth of filters like Jayvee’s dad did - all you need is a little DIY spirit and a bit of spare time.

I won’t explain everything here though - somebody else already did. Check out this tutorial on creating your own bokeh. It’s so simple I wish I had thought of this before. It’s such a low-tech solution, isn’t it?

On that note, Jayvee, when are we making our digital pinhole camera? On another note, Markku was that cool, or did it disappoint?

Tags: bokeh, DIYphotography.net, DIY, Jayvee, Cokin