BOKEH, BOKEH, what governs bokeh?

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>Nikon discovered in the 1960s that people think lenses are sharper when the background blur is harsher and the transitions not as smooth. It makes the in-focus objects stand out more. So they started overcorrecting for spherical aberration. Many lenses from the '70s on (to this day) are designed this way. It's no accident that many Nikkors are known for "bad" bokeh--it's in part the same thing that made them known for "good" sharpness!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Funny you mention that, Mike. I noticed that years ago, early 1980s, while a journalism student and college newspaper editor. When selecting photos I could tell which photographer took which photos by the character of the out-of-focus areas. A couple of the students used Nikons; one used a Canon A1. The Nikkor shots always had distinctly harsher blur. The other students thought I was nuts - they couldn't see any differences.</p>

<p>But it actually influenced me to go with Canon FD gear later (at the time I was using a Ricoh K-mount system with indifferent OOF blur). I've since switched to Nikon, but bokeh wasn't really a factor.</p>

<p>Only much later, when I read your comments on the CompuServe photo forum, did I realize that not only did other photographers notice this stuff, they actually coined a term for the concept. That must've been during the mid to late 1990s?</p>

<p>I've said it before, I'll say it again: I blame you for this mess. From http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/01/fame.html...</p>

<blockquote><a href="http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/01/fame.html">"I blame Mike Johnston for the bokeh craze. He deserves the credit or blame for popularizing the concept in the U.S. Had I not read his writings about bokeh years ago on the CompuServe photo forum I might never have cared. Now it's like that funny noise your car makes that everyone else claims they can't hear."<br /> <i>—Lex ("perpendicularity consultant") Jenkins, on the Nikon Forum</i> </a></blockquote>

<p>Will the last brain-addled photographer to leave the party please turn out the lights and lock the door on this fuzzy concept? ;></p>

[sg_adams]

<p>Chris Brown, just absolutely beautiful ! </p>

 

[sg_adams]

<p>Mike J., isn't one of the Nikkor 105 lenses supposed to be sort of a cult classic for 35mm portraits? The only primary I have over 50mm that is not a zoomer is an Asahi Pentax 135mm 3.5 SMC for K-mount. I've only run a couple frames behind it. Now I'm curious. I figured I couldn't go wrong for $25. I don't know if I'd consider the Pentax K stuff classic or not so haven't done much with it. <br>

And thanks everyone for all these great comments whether you believe in bokeh, blur, or selective accidental purposefulness... </p>

[danny3]

<p>I took this with a Z612 kodak p&s, f/4 ,ISO 80,1/500sec,33mm away. Ive found you can get good BOKEH if you know what you are doing,just play around with your camera, and if you have any common sense about yourself you will figure it out. Happy shooting!!</p>

[danny3]

<p>My picture did not make it so i will try again. thanks</p><div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>...isn't one of the Nikkor 105 lenses supposed to be sort of a cult classic for 35mm portraits?</blockquote>

<p>Yup, but not especially for the bokeh. It's very sharp even wide open. But the bokeh depends on the background - shape of OOF objects, distance between in-focus subject and OOF background objects, and all the usual voodoo and hocus-pocus.</p>

[sg_adams]

<p>Hum? This was my first impression of the Asahi 135 lens. Very sharp wide open, in fact too sharp I would think for portrait work, but while the Asahi doesn't have the rep the shorter Nikkor does, it seems to be reasonably well known. <br>

But, here we go again... Hocus-pocus and voodoo are two very different approaches much like hokey-bokey has now been established as not only purely accident, but also part of a technical approach. Personally I prefer voodoo, though hocus-pocus was prominent in my early work. Now it all seems to be poo-poo... </p>

[jamespjones]

<p>FWIW, I find the Nikon 105mm f2.5 to have a consistently attractive boke-aji (to use MJ's term of the day).<br /> With regards to this discussion of boke as concept, I have found that my Japanese brethren are very keen to capture the intangible feelings one has when observing the world. It is a very emotion driven culture in that sense, thus words like natsukashii - a classic example of a feeling that is hard to translate into English (something like nostalgic). When it comes to good bokeh, it is like that famous phrase "I know it when I see it." I don't think any lens always delivers, but some certainly do a lot more than others.<br>

<br /> It is because of the boke, shallow depth of field and selective focus, that I hope that we will continue to see the development of beautiful fast lenses despite the ISO trends that seem to be swinging us away from fast primes.</p>

<div></div>

[mike_johnston2]

<blockquote>

<p>I noticed that years ago, early 1980s, while a journalism student and college newspaper editor. When selecting photos I could tell which photographer took which photos by the character of the out-of-focus areas. A couple of the students used Nikons; one used a Canon A1. The Nikkor shots always had distinctly harsher blur.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Hi Lex,</p>

<p>Yeah, I used to be able to go through <em>Sports Illustrated</em> and pick out who was using Nikons and who was using Canons.</p>

<p>And people do respond to these things even when they don't know what they're responding to. It's like they sort of "sense" it, semi-consciously. Some people prefer certain kinds of "looks" in pictures even if they can't describe for you what the effects are that are making it look the way it does. It's very interesting. I keep threatening to do more research in this area, but it's a lot of work to make the prints, and nobody pays for that.</p>

<p>There's a lot of individual taste involved. Certain tonal properties drive me nuts, for instance, like HD curves that sag in the middle. I always strive to keep my preferences in check when looking at the work of others--it's very limiting to reject other peoples' work just because you don't like their technique. So I always try to be "open to convincing" when looking at other peoples' stuff.</p>

<p>I remember once showing some prints to Phil Davis, and he mentioned that I was getting a lot of edge effects and suggested a few steps I might take to reduce them. I was a bit hurt, because I had worked hard to figure out how to produce the effects he was talking about! I loved the look; to him it looked more like a problem. De gustibus....</p>

<p>Mike</p>

<p>P.S. The older I've gotten, the more important perpendicularity becomes. [g]</p>

 

[scott_kirkpatrick2]

<p>re: instinctively telling Canon from Nikon by the Bokeh -- something like that distinguishes complex scene photos in the leica world between pre-asph and the later 1990+ aspherical lenses. To me the more corrected background scenes look like they are stage-painted with a broad brush but clear lines. This is more aggressive inclusion of background details than the pull-focus shifting from actor A in the foreground to B in the background that was mentioned above. But if the picture is about A and there is no single B in the background, just a lot of people doing their thing, I prefer the more definite drawing style. Here's an example, I hope:<br>

<img src="http://www.pbase.com/skirkp/image/79237944.jpg" alt="" /><br>

scott</p>

[zml]

<p>I generally measure bokeh in the number of beers I need to find that out-of-focus crap pleasing: say, the OOF areas obtained with wide-open Leica or Zeiss lenses start looking fine after about 5-6 beers whereas the results from the same lenses closed down to f/5.6 look OK just after one Hacker-Pschorr.</p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>Here is a kind of half-technical response. My understanding is that good vs. bad Bokeh is mainly the result of optical aberrations in the out-of-focus image, and that spherical aberration is the most important.</p>

<p>You may ask "but aren't most lenses well-corrected for spherical aberration?" The answer is "yes, but..."</p>

<p>Yes, spherical aberration is generally well-corrected for the in-focus image, but in the out-of-focus image spherical aberration tends to be either over-corrected or under-corrected. This is a separate issue from the just being out of focus. The result is that the out-of-focus image of a point source is not just a uniformly lit circle (or polygon), but tends to have the light either pushed somewhat toward the outer edge, like the image from the Nikon 50/1.8 given above, or pushed somewhat away from the outer edge. I think the last behavior gives better bokeh. Often, it is one behavior for items closer to the camera than the focal plane, and the other behavior for items further away from the camera than the focal plane. However, usually it is background that concerns the photographer, so given the choice of good bokeh in the forground vs. the background, most photographers would prefer good bokeh in the background.</p>

<p>The above explanation is, to the best of my recollection, something I read on the subject once, and it may or may not be right.</p>

[george_lopez1]

<p>My version<img src="file:///Users/macdaddy/Desktop/REDinGREEN.jpg" alt="" /></p><div></div>

[sg_adams]

<p>That makes sense Alan where you discuss over and under correction and how it would effect an image. Though not a technoweenie, I like to learn the charteristics of the vintage lenses I get, personality if you will, and then use these traits to advantage whereas some folks might consider an old outdated chunk of glass not worth the trouble and consider edge flare, lack of contrast, or wide open softness shortcomings. I don't remember the technical terminolgy folks use to describe the edges where high values meet low or dark, but this is one thing that, even when one might think it is only noticeable in big enlargements, I look at, and look closely. I think what Alan discusses also effects these sharp edges to some extent. <br>

Here is one example of what I am talking about. This is a very small crop taken from a WWII Speed Graphic 4x5. The film area used is smaller than a 35mm neg, and I was probably 15 ft give or take from the subject field of focus. </p><div></div>

[sg_adams]

<p>Wow, IIRC this is a lot smaller than 35, but anway you can see what I am talking about in middle bottom of the image. Note how the dark edges of the stranded rope (line on a boat) and the dark edges of the winch bracket mount etc are seemingly outlined with sort of flare. The background water is also OOF and while the grain of the HP5 is quite apparent, I really like it for subject matter like this. There is also aninteresting edge dynamic right where the hard dark edge meets the lighter. I don't know if you all would consider the soft background bokeh or not. </p>

[kymtman]

<p>One final BOKEH!</p><div></div>

[Matt Laur]

<p><em>One final BOKEH!<br /><br /></em>That's the thing about bokeh, Ron. If it's good, you can't <em>tell</em> when it ends.<br /><br /> Thanks for the fun thread, by the way.</p>

[mark_hahn]

<p>bad harsh bokeh can easily draw your attention away from the main subject... that's why you have to be concerned about it. If you haven't experienced then you either don't notice, have excellent lenses or don't shoot with wide apertures...<br>

You don't want good bokeh so people will be drawn to the background, you want it so the background just gives the illusion of being in the distance... in a *pleasing* way.</p>

<p>>>Does "Bokeh" mean specifically the pattern in the background...but since when has any photograph drawn more attention to the background?</p>

[michael_kuhne]

<p>This has been one of the most interesting threads I have seen in a while! I think with all the fine input, info, and excellent examples, it should be clear that good bokeh is about characteristics beyond just how far out of focus a background is. And it pertains to all out of focus areas, both nearer and more distant, and transitioning. There is indeed also a subjective element, according to preferences for a given effect. </p>

<p>The difference between bokeh and the use of selective focus was well explained, especially by Matt. Kelly's report regarding the use of different background effects by cinematographers is facinating! The info about lens design causing good bokeh in foreground instead of backgound, or visa versa, or in best cases in both fields, was very informative in addressing causes. </p>

<p>I have an example at hand I can offer. In this case used on a DSLR, but this lens is well-designed for full use on my old MF film camera bodies as well, which I sometimes do. It has an aperture ring, and fine MF characteristics and feel. </p>

[michael_kuhne]

<p>Not being so great with computers, I did not get my example in. BTW, there was no post processing used. So here goes..</p><div></div>

[dave_leonard]

<p>That's a good picture, and illustrates what good bokeh is.</p>

[rdm]

<p>I guess no ones got an answer for me, or a comparison between the Canon and Minolta.</p>

[rose_duclos]

<p>Here's another example of bokeh - also taken with a pentax, but using a the sigma apo 70-300mm zoom. </p><div></div>

[patrick j dempsey]

<p>I don't think I've ever seen quite so many digital photographs taken with modern lenses on the Classic Cameras forum in the few years I've been putting around here.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>That's what happens when the "B" word is tossed around with such disregard for the consequences of invoking the spirits. Who knows what will come out of the woodwork.</p>