Bokeh Mania: Can It Be Stopped?

[marc_bergman1]

<p>The term "boke" has been used in print for almost 50 years.</p>

<p>I find newbies have no problem asking about the concept and then learning from the answers given as to what the term means. They can then chose to apply the concept to their photography or not. But at least they have an understanding.</p>

<p>The problem is with the "Elmers" who think they need to answer every question without understanding the basic concept.</p>

<p>It is okay to not understand every photographic term. Just use this thread to learn once and for all what a specific term means. There is no need to disparage everyone else in the world who actually understand the concept. </p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Be careful, Lex. If you render Mike Johnston out of focus, he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.<br /><br />And, Nick: The dog likes the first one. Why? Because that one's from a screw-driven AF lens, and when I tell the camera to focus it, it makes more interesting noises. Dogs like interesting noises, but don't really care at all about quality-of-background-blur-eh.<br /><br />Speaking of blur-eh, Les: there's a reason I don't just use the word "blur" when the discussion is about the OoF qualities usually being rehashed. <em>Blur</em> overlaps too readily with subject and/or camera motion blur. To make the distinction, you have to add those extra syllables ("quality of the background blur"). The irony, of course, is that until you started this thread, it had been many weeks since I had any reason to use the B word. As usual, ranting to make people stop doing something just makes it worse!<br /><br />Kelly: Whew! I've been called a lot of things, but never a preppie. I mean, <em>never</em> that. Though I have met a polo horse, and do actually know someone named Muffy.</p>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>Matt, I was trying to visualize a hot dog chasing a chipmunk, you really had me psyched. My fantasy was broked when you were talking about a dog that was hot.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Except, MDiM, this was a <em>woodchuck</em>. Sort of like a chipmunk, but more like 35 pounds. With big teeth.<br /><br />Here's one of its spawn from this spring:<br /><img src="http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00W/00Wx17-263877684.jpg" alt="" width="573" height="700" /><br /><br />Of course, I'm mostly posting this image so that we can talk about the OoF blur rendered by the 70-200/2.8 with a TC17EII. Pay no attention to that large tree-climbing rodent.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>How much bokeh could that tree rat chuck? I mean, if it could chuck nebulous concepts...</p>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>Matt, I really wish you had P'shopped in a beer stein in his right paw and a cig in his mouth. It would have placed him in North Carolina?</p>

<p>Here is POOFBA (an acronym for a bunch of words that have nothing to do with bokeh) photo that I like. Shot with the Elmarit M gog'd 135 at 2,8 at minimum distance of about 9 feet (K64). I like the focus transition. Even though the thread started as a semi maybe tongue in cheek rant, I learned a few things.</p>

<p>OT, the modern term Analog for a film camera is the most idiotic renaming of an object of all time. That makes Bokeh sound intelligent, and the reason I will never join APUG (A Pug is a dog).</p>

<div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>You call that brokeh? I can almost recognize shapes. True brokeh lenses emit 100% unidentifiable substances and elicit gaseous emissions of hyperbole from brokehnauts.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/7154077-md.jpg" alt="" width="679" height="450" /><br>

<em>It's brokehlicious!</em></p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>I can accept old wine in new bottles, but do I really have to I think. I could be learning blue screen and green screen while studying creamy bokeh, and how to get up the bokeh mountain.. If the manufacturers want to put out more blades in their irises and they can do it, I say go for it. Advertise it to the suckers and charge more... I just don't think there is anything real behind the term "creamy bokeh." It is an illusion, more snake oil, so I agree with our friend, Les OP, and have said so a couple times. Like "organic" or "heart healthy" in the food pantry. ( And then, spinning off with free association on wunderwords re art stuff, there is the phrase "post modern" I see a lot lately. What the hell does that mean, modern is modern, what is post modern. Is there going to be a post post modern.. I guess I am the last man standing to not know or get that one, and what is shameful I suppose, I just don't<strong> give a damn..( I may not qualify to post again in the Pof P sorry about that.)<br /></strong><br>

<strong></strong>Why do I need to care is my argument so I will do something else to pass the time. Meditate with Marcus Aurelius. Something else I am suppose to<em> 'control' for</em> I gather?.<br>

Yet, I have enough cats to juggle already and we all do. And there are a couple gerbils in the wings waiting their turn. to get a spin..</p>

[bjscharp]

<p>The original post makes me think of this paragraph from one of Mike Johnston's (the person who coined the term, afaik) <a href="http://www.photo.net/columns/mjohnston/column49/index.html">columns on the subject</a>:</p>

<blockquote><p>One of the curious aspects of the phenomenon for me was that some people then, and some even now, respond to the idea scornfully or even angrily. Is this some sort of insistence on conformity, as if you are supposed to look at certain parts of pictures and not others?</p></blockquote>

 

<p>Seems the OP is one of those people :-)</p>

 

<p>PS: I fully agree with Matt's post.</p>

[ray .]

Out of focus backgrounds are overused. Even if it's out of focus it still needs to work as part of a 2-dimensional composition (photography being a 2-dimensional medium). And sorry Matt, while that's a good looking dog, the background objects and shapes don't fit, out of focus or not.

[david_henderson]

<p>If people don't like discussions on bokeh, let them photograph maps</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Ray: it's <em>supposed</em> to be a bad photograph! I'm just pointing out that the differences between lenses - with respect to how the background is rendered when it's out of focus - isn't merely in the fevered imagination of breathless, hypnotized newbies. I used a bad composition and ugly light just to defang Les's insistance, in his OP, that I don't wave my hands and distract with some better-looking, purposeful photograph which might seduce the weak-willed for the wrong reasons. At least I <em>think </em>that's what Les was getting at!</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>I like the bokeh in this image.</p><div></div>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>Matt, if this site featured reputation points, I'd give you a couple. Nice post (referring of course to the one with the two dog pics).</p>

<p>What's in fashion and what's stylish are different things.</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>And in this one too.<br>

<a href=" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/4259096968_b6f4360d68_o.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="468" /></a></p>

[john_macpherson]

<p>This is all bokeh - find a suitable branch, find another suitable branch, align with a third and defocus..with 300 f2.8 - more bokeh than you can shake a blurry stick at.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.john.macpherson.btinternet.co.uk/Resources/leafblur2a.jpeg" alt="" width="654" height="440" /></p>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>Can we have a BOW photo contest and the winner could have a rose colored glasses icon by their name?</p>

[tjfuss]

<p>At the risk of beating a dead horse, I'll jump in.</p>

<p>To me it seems a shame to divide the image (oops... <em>picture - </em>image might sound too pretentious :-) into strictly subject and background, associating bokeh with just the background rendition. Sure, in the pictures of the dog, the lens effects are most noticable in the background highlights but they also have a significant inpact on the parts of the dog that are just out of focus. Look at the edge along the dog's back.</p>

<p>In the picture of the girl above, the lens's bokeh characteristics affect the background and left arm quite noticably but also affect her left cheek and eyelashes more subtly. I won't cop to obsessing about it but I do notice it.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>It's a good point, Timothy. That sort of stuff <em>really</em> jumps out at you if the subject is a person wearing patterned clothing, or perhaps sitting against a wicker chair. When the stuff that's rendered "nervously" is right next to the subject's face or some other important element, a lens as fidgety as the one in the top example can make a mess of it. Others will say, "just stop down and don't let that stuff go out of focus" - but that's not always possible, or desireable. <br /><br />If one bothers to look past the brighter specular junk I deliberately put in those examples, you'll also see that the linear shapes of the very out of focus chair also have some oddly sharp lines produced by the lens. Yes, you might be able to do some surgical softening in post, but in a complex scene, that can be a serious time waster. Again, everyone already knows whether any of this matters one bit, if at all or ever, to them personally.<br /><br />I'm beginning to think that most of the bokeh-chatter these days is started by people who are complaining about people talking about it. People who don't know what the word means will use it out of context ... but they also do the same thing with "rule of thirds," "f-stop," "fast lens," "low key," "lens distortion" (when they're really referring to the results of a change in perspective), and so on. This particular word just really seems to get under some folk's skin when it's used incorrectly, but I think a lot of other photographic concepts are abused more frequently, and in worse ways. But those tend to get a helpful straightening out by forum members, instead of the nearly religious fit of pique this one topic seems to generate. Or maybe I'm a just a little fuzzy on the subject (but in a creamy sort of way).</p>

[William Kahn]

<p>At my age, I can get plenty of bokeh in any photo simply by taking off my glasses.</p><div></div>

[jpo3136b]

<p>Take a look at the over-use of bokeh in this political TV commercial. [Candidate or party opinion unimportant here.] This has got to be the worst use of blurred backgrounds ever. </p>

<p>The problem in this video is that the supporting character in the video, the candidate's wife, is "giving focus", directing some attention to the candidate by looking in his direction. Her eyes, beyond the focus plane, become distracting. It's obvious: a very shallow depth of field was being used for effect; in this case, it backfired badly.</p>

<p>The wife's eyes become distracting, almost psychotic. The video is a good example of a great time to just keep everything in regular focus patterns and not always try the fancy effects.</p>

<p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>I don't know, John. I think that the real lesson there is to not try out your new contact lenses during the production of your spouse's campaign ads.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Matt, how on earth did you get your dog to wait for you and hold the exact same pose while you changed lenses! Geesh, I shoot one frame of my cat, and she's "outta there!"</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Brokeh is like indie music. It was cool when only the cool kids knew about it. Then photo.net and <a href="http://pitchfork.com/">Pitchfork</a> came along and ruined everything. Now the only way to make hip photos is to deliberately use nisen-bokeh... ironically.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Michael, see Jay's post below yours. That method will work too, although not as well (particularly in the margins). It works best with a small lens (i.e. with tight lens groupings). It's a fun thing to play around with.</p>

<p>Matt, your sample dog images illustrate differences in bokeh very well. It's worth saying, though, that the so-called "bad" bokeh that produces hard edges on specular highlights is sometimes "good." Sometimes, especially in night photography, well defined discs of light, rather than indistinct blobs, can add context to the picture and otherwise accentuate it. You've illustrated the difference between harsh bokeh (which I admit is almost always bad) and creamy bokeh. Somewhere inbetween is what I would call a neutral bokeh, illustrated by this holiday portrait taken with my Canon EF 100mm f/2.0:</p>

<p><img src="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/portraituresample.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>I've often thought it would be interesting to fade the edges of a cheap filter with a misting of black spray paint to try to create an "ultra-creamy" bokeh for other shooting situations. I never got around to trying it.</p>