Sorry, things have been slow on the blog lately. I just need a break every now and then.
Here's an example of my playing around with a technique called shaped bokeh. I think I have the technical part down, but I haven't really come up with anything too inspiring yet. There's lots of tutorials out there explaining how to do this so instead of taking the time to write another one, just to make myself look smart, I'll direct you to the one I used:
http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_create_your_own_bokeh.
1-20 sec, f/1.8 (well that's what the camera was set to, I guess to find what it really was you'd have to calculate the area of the music note shape and then find what the diameter of a circle with the same area would be, then divide that into the focal-length), ISO 800, 50mm (35mm eqv. 81mm)
Canon PowerShot A510, 1.6 sec, f/2.6, ISO 50, 5.8mm (35mm eqv. 37mm)
You may notice I made a couple adjustments that are not in the tutorial. First, I made it easier to add different shapes without having to make a holder for each one. And second, I didn't have any black paper that would block out all light, so I used aluminum foil with cardboard to hold it in place. I figured that this would also allow me to have cleaner edges than paper would. However, the foil is much more delicate, I think.