bokeh

What is it: bokeh? I have seen this term used frequently, but no idea what it is.

I used to think it was some sort of Zen thing or something, yin-yang, whatever... but actually it is simply a photographic term relating to the quality or aesthetics of the out of focus areas in the background of an image. You know, those circles or very blurry areas when you have an image with a very shallow depth of field? Or where the highlights or pinpoints of light become small circles, often times the shape of the aperture or lens opening? I think it's most commonly used in the large format arena with soft focus and vintage, antique soft focus lenses; where a lens's "bokeh" is a very important feature that photographers look for.

Hope this helps. Here's a Wiki page on it.

Lon

Thanks Lon, in all my years involved with photography I have never heard or seen the term used before I joined NPN. Guess I can't called them the OOF areas anymore! Appreciated your responding.

I always thought 'bokeh' had something to do with long-stem roses

--P

John - Bokeh is basically how an out-of-focus background looks. If you go to my Gallery and click on my owl image, you will see a beatiful bokeh (IMO) because the background which is shubbery and trees has been reduced to beautiful shadings of color. This is a result of the shallow DOF used and the bokeh of this particular lens. Every lens handles the out-of-focus areas differently and will create a different bokeh, so this owl image taken with a different lens would have different bokeh and therefore a different looking background. If I had used a lens that didn't have as nice bokeh, the background would not have been so smooth. Bokeh is most important with images that have a shallow DOF such as avian, flora and macro and people who primarily shoot these types of images often seek out lenses that have a beautiful bokeh.

I seem to remember having read that the bokeh is controlled mainly by the number of elements or blades in the shutter. The more blades you have the rounder and therefore smoother the out of focus background will be. Some also have more rounded edges on the blades. Corrections for spherical aberration and diffraction can also affect the bokeh. Macro lenses generally have a smoother and therefore more desirable bokeh than most other lenses which is probably why they are also popular for portrait lenses.

Bokeh is an ethereal concept that is apparently profound to some while the very base defintion is fuzzy and indistinct to many or most. My poor and vague notion is that bokeh means pleasant out of focus areas. You may find the comments above nicer, but niceness is like invisible mind bokeh.

Pete D.

Invisible mind bokeh?

Oooh, I like that.
My mind isn't out of focus, it just has really good bokeh.

Mark--sounds like early onset Alzheimer's to me

John,

You might want to look at the following page over at the Luminous Landscape site: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml

Pat