What the hell is bokeh?

[peter_l_ck]

Hello everybody. Can you tell me what is bokeh? I made now for more

than 20 years pics with Leica but the first time I heard this word was

here and in E. Puts` book. This must be an American or Japanese topic

bur not a German. Please try to make me a bit more prudent. Thanks

Peter

[preston_merchant]

What a can of worms you have opened! ;>)

 

Bokeh may or may not mean blurry in Japanese, and it is supposed to refer to the out-of-focus portions of the picture.

 

But asking your question on this forum is tantamount to wondering if the Virgin Birth is really such a big deal.

[joshroot]

Try using the photo.net search function. There have been any number of threads on this subject.

[per_volquartz1]

Bokeh is about the smooth gradation from sharpness to blur and the rendering of out of focus areas. Good Bokeh is as smooth as a baby's butt!

[al_kaplan1]

Do a google search. There's a ton of info out there. It is a word that means (to photographers) the way a lens renders out of focus areas of the photograph. It's partly due to the shape of the diaphragm opening (round is best) and most of the rest from residual uncorrected spherical abberation. Out of focus highlight areas should be brightest in the center. If they're brightest at the edges you have bad bokeh. But like I said, you csan spend the next few weeks learning ALL the details. Some examples of bokeh with 50mm Leica mount lenses can be seen at http//www.comworks.gr.jp/~taka/hobby/camera/Lens/LensTest/

 

Have fun.

[mike grossman]

Heck... I just want to know how it's pronounced.

[al_kaplan1]

It's pronounced bo' keh. Long "O" as in "low", accent on the first sylable, short aspirrated "e" as in depth, h is silent.

[ross_macdonald]

The usual standard reference article is available on the Luminous-Landscape site: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml

[steve_b.2]

Peter, I have read and tried to understand the technical descriptions here about "bokeh", and which lenses and manufacturers produce good or bad bokeh. Despite some knowledgeable descriptions posted here about "bokeh", the best example I've personally achieved comes from loading a new roll of film in the camera, taking the first few shots to get to frame #1 (without focusing or setting the exposure, and with the camera pointed either up at the sky or down at the ground), and then getting that wasted shot back from the film processor. Or is that image, especially in black and white, called "fine art"? Anyway, I think that there is way too much emphasis on the quality of the unsharp, fuzzy part of a photo. All this time I thought I paid U.S. $2,000 for the 28mm ASPH Summicron for a sharp color transparency!

[Sanford]

I think I know what it is but I would sure like to know how to pronounce it. I'd love drop that word into a casual conversation at my local camera store but I would look like an idiot if I pronounced it wrong.

[dean_g]

Bokeh is a product of fuzzy logic.

[mike dixon]

Yeah, well <i>I</i> think there's a ridiculous amount of emphasis placed on high resolution and high contrast!! After all, everyone else should be taking pictures of people using narrow depth of field. What kind of dumbass would waste the beautiful bokeh of their Leica glass by having most of the photo in focus??<P>

great big <b>; )</b><P>

<center><img src="http://mikedixonphotography.com/livcol11.jpg"></center>

[al_kaplan1]

The whole Japanese concept of bokeh is to have an image in which the out of focus areas are smooth, are easy on the eyes, and don't draw attention away from the subject. Unless of course you're a student of bokeh and spend more time admiring the "good bokeh" than the subject.

[kenny_c.]

How do you like the bokeh from <a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon/105-micro/f201-25c.html"> this</a> picture? Like to know your opion. Sorry to link other people's picture.

[art_karr]

Peter:

 

Good question. I have been using Leica lenses since the end of

the 50's. Never heard about bokeh until the 90's. Went back and

looked at some of the slides and negatives. Yep, I does have

some good bokeh. Of course it is even better on the Zeiss

lenses on the Blad. Who would have thunk it? ;<)

 

Art

[gee-bug]

Useless fact: there are no <a href="http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=bokeh" target=_blank>anagrams</a> for the word "bokeh".

[charles barcellona www.bl]

Kenny... I'm not particularly impressed with the OOF part of the image, seems a bit coarse to me.

[jay_.]

Well as a predominantly scenic photographer my definition of bokeh is that quality that soft, low-contrast lenses possess that people use to justify the high price they paid for it, or the high price they're trying to sell it for ;>)

[freddie chopin]

Mike, no hostile intent here, but your bokeh example is something that I'd quickly edit right off my light table, if it were my shot. A disposable camera and poor drug store film processing can do this job. I can get all the "bokeh" I need by using a simple 1960 Voigtlander Vitoret with an uncoated lens. "Good" bokeh and Leica lenses seem like a big contradiction to me. We pay top dollar for lenses with superior contrast and sharpness, if you accept the marketing hype and independent test reports; lenses that Mr. Erwin P. goes to great lengths to test and write about their superb resolution and corner-to-corner sharpnes, especially when used wide open. And then we go and saw that these lenses' bokeh is what makes them unique? I'd rather put some vasoline on a cheap filter for that effect. Just my 2 cents.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Bokeh was coined by a Magnum photograper's two year old who was looking at her dads 500mm F8 photos. His teenage daughter said "Are those UFO's or donuts? " while the two year old was saying "bokeh, bokeh, bokeh"...............

[mike dixon]

Steve,

 

My point was that what someone considers an important characteristic in lenses depends very much on how the lens will be used. (I have yet to see a disposable camera that focuses at a meter, has shallow DOF, and has the flare resistance to handle strongly-backlit situations--in fact, my 75 'lux is the only lens I have that could handle the lighting situation above.) It's not up to you to decide why "we" buy or how "we" use Leica lenses.

 

Also, you seem to be confusing the issues of flare, soft focus, and bokeh--they're distinct aspects of a photo/lens.

[kenny_c.]

The sample picture from Nikon macro 105/2.8 D has seems to has excellent in-focus area (front girl's face) but the girl's face in the back with the yellow uniform is not pretty to look at in particular. I do not know if a good/bad bokeh related to the subject sometimes. Just a thought.

[ashley_hosten]

With referrence to Kenny's pic; I'd say the Bokeh wasn't bad. But an ideal bokeh, is when the o-o-f area stil retains all the shapes of objects, but graudally dissipates the softness of the 'edges'. Of course there are no 'edges' in an o-o-f area, but these areas should still maintain shape and not 'globulize'. Also, the melding of objects and colours are unwanted. Theoretically, perfect bokeh, provides absolute 'definition' in o-o-f areas.

 

A Japanese photographer / artist recently toured (still?) with his (sic) 'confusing' seascapes that were all o-o-f. Apparently it has gained tremendous critical acclaim.

[ashley_hosten]

Here is some stuff the Japanese photographer I referred to:

 

<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/08/28/badorm28.xml">Japanese Bokeh</a>

 

<a href="http://www.cca-kitakyushu.org/project/sugimotodet.html">more</a>

[michael_kastner]

Apparently the whole issue here is quite subjective -- what it even is, and what is good or bad -- and that is okay for me. But for me it is not simply the softliness of a fantastic portrait (always presentable by Mike up there), because I think you can do this even with a good choice of, say, a "too" sharp lens like a 2/90AA instead of the 2.8/90 or an older 2/90, together with a good soft filter.

 

For me, Bokeh has to do with the smooth graduation of sharpness between that up front which has to sharp, and that in the background which has to be fuzzy (or the other way around). And that which is somewhat fuzzy still has to have that certain degree of being able to be identified without our asking what that thing is out there. That's the real subjective part.

 

But finally, I see that some bokehs are "great" (or not) which e.g. have street lights etc in them. Sometimes you can really see that it is, yes, really a street light (or nice lamp or lantern etc) with its "beautiful" (now that term is always subjective) glowing and warmth from a bright inside to its fading outside horizons, INSTEAD of being all those polygons with their bright centers and equally bright but absolutely sharp-contrasted borders stamped around them.