When was 'bokeh' "discovered?"

[acute]

<p>I knew about bokeh back in the fifties when my dad had a practica with a huge piece of glass in front of it that dwarfed the camera by comparison. You could focus on a person's nose with the ears being out of focus with a nice soft bokeh. We just didn't call it bokeh but it was clear that you focused to a given distance and everything else would be out of focus and that it increased with larger apertures and decreased with smaller ones and also that it was strongest with object that were near. I guess bokeh was discovered when focusing was discovered.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>I read about some forensic work that allowed technicians to take the out of focus areas and get them <em>back</em> <strong>into focus.</strong> All the information is there, I guess like in a hologram. So if we have a criminal suspect in the background, we can do some sleight of handle computer wise and sharpen him or her up. I don't know the physics but maybe somebody else has seen this technique,very interesting. A pinhole camera,now, has negative boke on a quality- of -bokeh scale, per those same to me mysterious laws of optics.</p>

[steve m smith]

<p>It pre-dates photography. Some paintings which were made with the aid of a camera obscura show it too.</p>

<p>http://www.essentialvermeer.com/camera_obscura/co_three.html</p>