How's my bokeh?

Hey,
I did a little photoshoot with my sister and I was trying to figure out how to
do bokeh. I can't set my apeture very low on my lens only to about..5.6 or so, So how did these turn out? Any critiques would be great!

Sorry this is so huge! For some reason I can't get it to change its size with out it going all blury?

Well, first of all, I believe that "bokeh" depends on having some background specular highlights, whether they are lights, color elements, bright flowers, or reflections, that can become nicely softened into pleasing background elements. Otherwise, it's just shallow DOF and blurred-out background, and might as well be a colored sheet.

In the case of your shots above, the first doesn't seem to have a shallow enough DOF, and neither really seems to have an interesting enough background to create a nice "bokeh", even if it was adequately blurred.

Try getting a bit closer to your subject, and using a wider aperture (lower number f-stop) to make the DOf narrower. You should be able to go as low as your lens is capable of by using faster shutter speed and higher ISO to compensate for the right exposure. Also, try to find some color (small bits like flowers), light or reflections (like off water ripples) to have in the background when you do narrow the DOF enough to create a nice background softening effect.

Background blur is fine, but I am wondering, why does she have a pair of antennae growing out of her head?

In other words, Watch Your Background - you cant expect it to be blurred out.

Rad

I'd prefer a little bit more of blurring. If you can't open up the aperature more, one way to blur the background more is to use a longer focal length or to get closer to the subject.