ratempa wrote in post #10135338
I would definitely like to get this effect straight from the lens.
You can insert a piece of paper with a hole in the middle and place directly in front of the lens. The size of the hole will depend, you need to set the lens in manual focus and at the right focal point, you should get a circular aperture diffraction pattern which in turns creates a focused image right in the middle of the photo and saturated out of focus outside that area. This would give you an circular area in the middle where it is in focus and gradually becomes out of focus as it moves away from the center.
Kinda like Bokeh.
With a tilt shift lens, you can move the lens around while capturing the image. the center of the lens will not move or only have slight movement while the outer part will causing it to become out of focus. This would be similar to panning.
Edit: Or you can just save yourself some time, capture an image where everyone would be in focus and just edit it in photoshop where the chances of you getting the final results is much more likely than what the camera would provide.