BOKEH, BOKEH, what governs bokeh?

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Bokeh is a quality which cannot be described in numbers, hence is poorly defined and a subject of much hubris (as demonstrated in this thread).</p>

<p>I refer you to an excellent article by one of our own, Dr. Atkins (<a href="http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/bokeh.html">http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/bokeh.html</a>). This is the best exposition and demonstration I have seen on the elements behind bokeh. It does not say what is good or not, because that may vary between situations. The big surprise is which lens qualities (or lack thereof) contribute to bokeh. Consider this link an homework assignment.</p>

<p>In general, bokeh refers to the rendering of highlights in an otherwise out of focus background. Matt Lauer presents several examples of bokeh in practice - good and bad. While many other examples in this thread show pleasant OOF characteristics, none other than Matt's demonstrate the key issue of highlights</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>If one shoots the same scene with same lighting the out of focus areas maybe pleasing or with weird batwings; donuts; iris spikes; worlls.<br /> <br /> In the "pleasing" shot the objects ie actors in the out of focus areas still are identifible; and do not have compete with the "out of focus" effects.<br /> <br /> IN a suspense scene having discord in the out of focus areas can be used as a tool/effect to make the bogey/kilroy/boggie man/bad guy/monster/murder NOT as easy to identify in the out of focus movie area.<br /> Thus the main focus might Actor#1 that is IN FOCUS; and the villian is lurking around behind the actor; in the out of focus era.<br /> The plot might be such that the director does NOT want the villian to be indentified yet; to add tension and drama.<br /> <br /> Since movies tell a story; using lenses with lenses with good and poor out of focus effects are an ancient tool(s); think pre zoom; pre color; to the silent film era.<br>

<br /> In moviework one does a comparsion of lenses under lighting controlled conditions; something almost never done when folks talk about the B word; in the still camera world.<br>

<br /> A lens can have a poor out of focus look; and have a perfectly round iris too; its how the lens is corrected too.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>The B word is like weather. Folks add modifiers is they want to add info. Boston, Deytroit, and LA have weather today; but what is it? saying good or bad weather adds actual info; not bs.</p>

[JamieK]

<p>Aperture shape does have an effect, but it isn't the most important aspect. In-focus rays go where they're supposed to go, obviously. Less obviously, perhaps, out-of-focus rays do not go to a well-defined, out-of-focus location in the image. Better lenses generally produce better bokeh, but I suspect that it is because bokeh has been considered seriously in their design. I have included a link to an image of mine that has particularly terrible bokeh because the out of focus light is strangely well focused, just in the wrong place. Otherwise, I think this lens, the Sigma 20 mm, f/1.8 is really good. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/8381851">http://www.photo.net/photo/8381851</a></p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p><img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/ektar/Out%20Of%20Focus%20Effects/tripods-381.jpg?t=1231517987" alt="" width="567" height="371" /> <img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/ektar/LTM%20lenses/tripods-213.jpg?t=1231518049" alt="" width="558" height="374" /><br>

The second shot is with a Russian Tessar clone; the first is with a Gauss type Japanese normal lens; teh 50mm F1.2 LTM Canon . The 2nd shot has less discord in the out of focus areas that the 1 st shot</p>

<p>The two shots above are really not a well controlled test either; one has a setting sun; teh light is changing; an indoor fixed test setup would be better.</p>

[mark_medin]

<p>One thing about moviemakers (especially in the old days) is that their financial resources were far greater than even the best still photographer, so they could pick and choose lenses for their cameras, often with the cooperation of the lensmaker. Irises had many more leaves in those days as well, which helped, and with uncoated lenses, spherical aberration couldn't be controlled as well, either. You were stuck with how much correction you could get in four groups of lens elements or less. More than that and you had to deal with huge light losses to the film plane.</p>

[hal_edmonds]

<p>What you are discussing here is what we called (50 years ago) "circles of confusion". Seems like we're still confused.</p>

[mt4x4]

<p>Kelly,<br /> <br /> Don't the squirrels/birds ever knock over your can of Bud?</p>

[kbstella]

<p>I got nothing to add here except to say thanks to everyone contributing and to the guy brave enough to post the question. :D<br>

It's been wonderfully informative and cleared up lots of questions for me anyway. 'Course from here on out I'm gonna set my A at 18 or higher for fear of BB (Bad Bokeh).<br>

-_~</p>

[marc_bergman1]

<p>So many people running around in ever tightening circles of confusion.</p>

<p>The definative English language articles on Bokeh were written in the May/June 1997 issue of Photo Techniques magazine. The articles were:</p>

<p>What is 'Bokeh' by John Kennerdell</p>

<p>Notes on the Terminology of Bokeh by Oren Grad</p>

<p>A Technical View of Bokeh by Harold M. Merklinger</p>

<p>The editor of Photo Techniques was Mike Johnston. His column, 37th Frame, explains his facination with out of focus areas in a picture. He had tested many lenses for magazines. He had strong likes and dislikes of certain lenses that weren't explainable with objective tests. He was reacting to the quality of the out of focus areas.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p><em>I'm gonna set my A at 18 or higher for fear of BB (Bad Bokeh).<br /></em><br />Noooo! You'll just end up with DD (Deadly Diffraction). Really! Look it up.</p>

[dave_leonard]

<p>Is there such a thing as a list of older lenses that are known for good bokeh (the creamy kind)? It would be beneficial to many of us to know which ones to look for without having to buy a lot of lenses we don't need. 35mm and MF should both be included.<br>

Personally, I'd like a lens with excellent creamy type of bokeh for my Pacemaker 23 Speed Graphic. It's just to expensive to buy a big variety and shoot a lot of 120 film to find out.<br>

Dave</p>

[declark]

<p>I'm not so sure it's defined by aperture blades, curvature of blades, etc.... It's one of those things that makes a certain lens sort of magical; you know it when you see it. I love the bokeh from my Nikkor 105/2.5 Ais, but hated the Nikkor 50mm 1.8 Ai bokeh. Like the following nikons in terms of bokeh: 75-150mm series E, Nikkor-H 1.8, and the 70-210mm AF F4. My Pentax 645 55mm is also very creamy, and maybe even a bit better bokeh-wise than the 150mm 3.5 which is supposed to be a portrait lens. I also hate the bokeh from my Tamron 24-135mm, maybe it's the aspheric lenses that seem to do so much to create sharpness at the expense of bokeh.</p>

[pisq]

<p>Here is my contribution for a good Bokeh, I think by definition the out of focus region should not compete for attention with the main subject, and therefore an "ugly" bokeh is one that does not do that. The image was taken with a Nikkor 28-105 zoom at f3.5.<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/6858831<br /> <img src="file:///D:/Profiles/vwn648/LOCALS~1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg" alt="" /> <img src="../photo/6858831" alt="" /></p>

[kbstella]

<blockquote>

<p>"Noooo! You'll just end up with DD (Deadly Diffraction). Really! Look it up."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Oh God! Is there no hope then? :D</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p><em>Is there no hope then?<br /></em><br />There is indeed hope. Try f/8 for CC (Comfortable Compromise).<br /><br />Or, you could try f/11 for SS (Surgically Sharp).</p>

[rickbooker]

<p>And here I was thinking that Bokeh was how My name is mispronounced here in Massachusetts where they Pahk their Cahs in a pahking lot.</p>

[ian_cartmill]

<p>Mike Johnston's article at the link below has a good explanation of the bokeh concept, as well as his purely subjective ratings for various lenses that he has used (if this is of interest to you):<br>

<cite>www.lulu.com/items/volume_1/129000/129691/4/print/<strong>bokeh</strong> rankings5.pdf</cite></p>

[tholte]

<p>The funny thing about bokeh is that you can never get it on purpose, it is always an accident. If you try to get it, you never will. That is the main reason that good bokeh is so rare. </p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>The funny thing about bokeh is that you can never get it on purpose, it is always an accident. If you try to get it, you never will. That is the main reason that good bokeh is so rare.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Oh, just swell. So it's like marriage?</p>

[sg_adams]

<p>Accident? Why can't you get brokeh on purpose? Have you no preview, familiarity with your lens's DOF etc, etc, etc... <br>

I find that what you see in preview or on a GG is what tends to show up on the film. If you have a good idea of the DOF at desired f~stops one should be able to repeat results I would think. I don't seem to have any trouble with my rangfinder cameras. <br>

The below image was made when I was testing some film, but the background is as I saw it on a 6x9 view screen. What's the big deal? </p><div></div>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Accident? Why can't you get brokeh on purpose?</p>

<p>The B word is like weather; it requires some details; or adjectives to make it make any sense to somebody else</p>

<p>Thus your sentence is like saying Accident? Why can't you get weather on purpose?<br>

One always has weather or an out of focus look</p>

[mike_johnston2]

<p>"Bokeh" simply means blur, specifically out-of-focus blur (as opposed to the kinds caused by subject or camera movement). It includes, but is not limited to, out-of-focus highlights. Out-of-focus specular highlights are simply where aperture shape will show up most easily in pictures (i.e., spots of bright sky in out-of-focus foliage, for example).</p>

<p>The word or spelling have nothing to do with "bouquet."</p>

<p>The original articles were published in the March/April 1997 issue of "Photo Techniques" magazine, which I edited at the time. (Long out of print, unfortunately.) Carl Weese introduced me to the term. The articles were written by John Kennerdell, Oren Grad, and Harold Merklinger. Harold's article is online; I think you can find it at The Luminous Landscape. Oren and John still write for me on occasion at The Online Photographer. The only reason we added the "h" to the end of the Japanese word was that English speakers persistently mispronounce "boke." It's properly pronounced in two syllables, "bo" as in "bone" and "ke" as in "Kenneth" with equal stress on each syllable. "Bokeh" simply renders that a little more accurately. At least adding the "h" stopped all the "toke" jokes.</p>

<p>The other nice unintended consequence of the spelling was that it made the term easily searchable on the internet. In the weeks following the publication of the issue, I was able to watch as the number of search engine hits for "bokeh" went from 15, to 90, to 450, to 8,000 and so on. (A Google search just now yielded 2,790,000 hits.)</p>

<p>I fail to see how the term "bokeh" can be "pretentious," any more than the terms "sharpness" or "saturated" are pretentious. It's simply a descriptive word for a quality some photographs show (and some do not).</p>

<p>There's also no "good" or "bad" bokeh. As my father used to say, "if it works you're right, if it doesn't work you're wrong." Same for bokeh: if you like it, then it's good. If you don't like it, then it's bad.That goes for blur itself, as well as for its specific properties. Some people just don't like blur in pictures.</p>

<p>There's some agreement, but it's very rough. For instance, more people than not seem to dislike "ni-sen" (Japanese for "double-line," or near enough) bokeh, but the late Phil Davis (author of "Beyond the Zone System") showed me a picture he liked taken with a very odd, <em>very</em> old camera that featured a church steeple way in the distance. The lens had rendered it as TWO very blurry church steeples, quite widely separated. I've still never seen more egregious ni-sen. Phil liked the effect enough that he had framed the picture. See above, under "if you like it...."</p>

<p>"Selective focus" just means that part of a picture is in focus and part isn't--and, hopefully, the photographer knows enough to control which is which. (Many photographers don't, sadly.) The opposite of selective focus is sometimes called "pan-focus," which just means that everything is sharp from front to back. The term pan-focus has nothing to do with panning, which is a different technique altogether. I know, photographic terminology is a mess, and getting worse all the time. Don't blame me.</p>

<p>The Japanese term for the connoisseurship of lens bokeh--its aesthetic effect--would probably be "boke-aji," which translates roughly to "taste of blur."</p>

<p>There's no perfect lens for bokeh. Please don't ask me how I know, as it's very painful to suffer from such a blatant mental infirmity.</p>

<p>Learning how your lens renders blur, however, is no different from learning its other characteristics, such as whether it's unsharp at certain apertures or whether it smears the corners, or whatever. Some people like that kind of thing, some people don't. It's all good. If you want to learn it so you can attempt to apply it or control it, fine; if you don't, and prefer just to take pictures and let the chips (both the sharp and the blurry chips!) fall where they may, that's fine too.</p>

<p>Most often, these days, I just say "blur" rather than "bokeh."</p>

<p>There are some great examples in this thread.</p>

<p>Mike</p>

[sg_adams]

<p>Hum? If you can't get the blur you want on purpose, either try a different lens/diaphram combo, practice, test, read, learn,compare, try harder, or maybe just continue doing accidental images. I looked at some, what would have been, good images except I had unacceptable blur, too much in my case. So I worked on getting what I wanted. I consider accidental brokeh to be purely that. Purposeful selective focus that turns out a succesful image would be more of a well executed process wouldn't you think. Just a thought, don't get riled about my opinion on the matter. Just get a lens you like and <strong>learn what it will do !</strong> </p>

[www.photo.netphotosdecle]

<p>Wide open appiture. Here's one<img src="../photo/8486396" alt="" /></p>