Last Updated on 01/07/2019 by Mark Beckenbach
Ever been curious about the famed Brenzier Method? Give it a try today with this quick tutorial.
The Bokeh Panorama continues to be a popular technique for portrait and wedding photography for its unique and eye-catching look. It was popularized by acclaimed wedding photographer Ryan Brenzier and has since been called the Brenizer Method. If this is something you’ve been wanting to try for your next projects, we’ve found just the quick tutorial for you!
When Chicago-based photographer and filmmaker Eric Floberg shared some of his beautiful photos in bokeh panorama fashion, people naturally wanted to know how he did it. So, he made a quick tutorial showing us how it’s done. It’s actually easy, so we’re sure you’ll want to get started with it soon enough!
In the tutorial above, we first learned that what makes the Brenizer Method work is the combination of a wide angle of view and a shallow depth of field. In his example, you’d like to get the bokeh quality of an 85mm lens (the actual lens he used for his bokeh panoramas), and the focal length of a wider 35mm lens.
The trick to achieving this is to take photos first of your subject/s in portrait mode, then of the surrounding scene. Make sure you’re shooting with back button focusing (or manual focus) so your camera doesn’t refocus when you’re shooting the scene. It can be just nine photos like Floberg did, or a few more for good measure. This allows you to have enough of the scene to work with and create that wide angle look. Just make sure you capture from all sides of your subject/s and you’re good to go.
Next, you put everything together in post-process. If you use Lightroom, simply select the photos you’d like to use for your bokeh panorama shot, right-click, and select Photo Merge. You will then see a panorama preview, which you can merge if you like the result. Then, edit as you normally do.
Easy peasy, right?
Head to Eric Floberg’s YouTube channel if you want more of his photography tips and tricks.
Screenshot image from the video by Eric Floberg