I'm new this group and although I've been a Leica owner (user sounds cold to me) I never really got into the philosophy of it. However having read a lot of the archives it seems I adhered to many of its principles naturally, I suppose that must how the camera changes its owner (I know it changed the way I take pictures).
Well this concept of 'Bokeh' fascinates me, could any of you kind people fill me in on the origins of 'Bokeh' (and how do you pronounce it too)? Are there any rules to 'Bokeh'? Who thought of 'Bokeh'? and how many of you regard it as integral to their 'art'?
-- Philip Woodcock (phil@pushbar.demon.co.uk), November 20, 2001
Answers
Bokeh is what you see when the subject of the picture isn't strong
enough, or interesting enough, to keep your attention, so you start
wandering through the background. :-) That's how *I* think of it,
anyway. :-)
You should do a web search--a lot will turn up, including pages of
examples of good and bad bokeh, history, definitions. Basically, it's
the quality of out-of-focus stuff--whether it's smooth and creamy
(just plain "out of focus" as you'd want it to be) or a bunch of
angry semi-sharp repeating lines and stuff (there are lots of ways to
be bad). If you start looking, you'll start noticing it.
-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), November 20, 2001.
From my experience, certain lenses produce a particularly
beautiful rendition of the out-of-focus areas of the shot. Non-ASPH
Leica lenses have that reputation, as do lenses from Zeiss, such as
those for the Hasselblad camera. It is especially important at the
maximum aperture, which is the only "natural" aperture any lens has,
and which is not influenced by the shape of the iris opening.
I
could post any number of pictures taken with Leitz or Zeiss glass
that demonstrate beautiful bokeh. I've chosen one that I've posted
here before but which, I think, sums up the reason why I do consider
it integral to my art. You may find more on my site.
Peter Hughes
Photography
-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), November 20, 2001.
Philip, it's a Japanese term for the appearance of the out-of focus
part of the image. When a lens is described as having "bad bokeh" it
seems to be the case that the out-of focus areas are rendered in a
more complex way that makes them less smooth, and thus more
distracting, than "good bokeh". With good bokeh details are reduced
to a blur; with bad bokeh, there seems to be detail within the blur.
I've seen this referred to as "busy bokeh." I've experienced this
with my 55mm Micro-Nikkor, which renders out-of-focus details as
double images. Thus, a twig separates into two blurry twigs.
It seems that more highly corrected lenses are more at risk for bad
bokeh. The new 35mm Summicron ASPH, as an example, (according to
some), has a busier bokeh than a pre-ASPH one.
We do not yet seem to have much of a common language yet for
describing Bokeh, beyond the possibly arbitrary judgement of "good"
vs. "bad." I had noticed the effect, though, years before I knew it
was called bokeh. I knew there was something odd about the
appearance of pictures taken with certain lenses. Seeing it
acknowledged in print has helped me learn how to think about it, and
it does influence my selection of lenses.
Regards,
-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), November 20, 2001.
It is japanese and means fuzzy or fuzziness. I is not specifically a
photographic term. I am told it is often used as a polite way to
descripe a senile person.
-- Niels H. S. Nielsen (nhsn@ruc.dk), November 21, 2001.
I can’t remember that I have ever shot the bokeh as the purpose
instead of something interesting, just as a background.
I agree …this damned “Bokeh” appears when you shoot either a senile
person or nothing interesting:?)
-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), November 21, 2001.
I thought that the Bokeh "thing" was rather new, but resently I read
a book about Leica SM & M3 from the late 50' and under the decription
of some of the lenses there were mentioned that "this lens have a
very plesant change from sharp to unsharp" So at least for Leica this
have been a thing that they was consirned about.
Kaj
-- Kaj Froling (kf@draupnir.dk), November 21, 2001.
Philip,
Some members of the LUG get unreasonably irritated when someone
mentions bokeh. I think that may be because, being Leica users, they
haven't seen many examples of bad bokeh; it's only when it's ugly
that you notice it!
The following example has strange bokeh (apologies to Doug Herr, who
first pointed this out in a diffeerent forum and to Mark Cassino,
from whose site it is taken and who also has some outstandingly
beautiful wildlife pictures - do yourself a favour and browse his
site):
http://www.markcassino.com/0007/gallery2/0007ndx.htm
To read some explanations on bokeh, you could try the following sites:
http://www.flarg.com/bokeh.html
http://www.slonet.org/~dkrehbie/bokeh/bokeh.htm
-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), November 21, 2001.
Different strokes for different folks--you'd best look around and
form your own opinions. I ran to Peter Hughes' site to see what was
to be found there in the way of beautiful bokeh, and a lot of what I
saw, I would mainly put in the "irritating" class--no double lines,
but too granular and harsh for my taste. Fortunately, the subjects
overpowered the backgrounds.
-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), November 21, 2001.
Philip, just in case you haven't already checked out one or two
of these:
http://digistar.co
m/rollei/1999-09/0629.html
http://fox.nstn.ca/~hmmerk/
ATVB.pdf
http://fox.
nstn.ca/~hmmerk/HMArtls.html#anchor26001
http://fox.nstn.ca/~hmme
rk/HMBooks.pdf
http://fox.nstn.ca/~hmmerk
/DOFR.html
http://home
pages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/Guy/bokeh.html
http
://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/v17/msg11954.html
http
://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/v18/msg09754.html
http://members.aol.c
om/abreull/htm/08a.htm
http://www.foto.no/niko
n/lens_surv.html
http://nemeng.com/leica/
ht
tp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/8827/TamronBokeh.html<
/U>
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=004R
VI
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=004X
5S
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005r
YD
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005u
Fo
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006D
s2
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006h
9m
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006R
AB
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006R
Q7
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006s
wA
http://www.
imx.nl/photosite/leica/technics/faq.html
http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/technics/optics01/lensdesign0
1.html
http://www.kenrockwel
l.com/tech/bokeh.htm
http://www.lynnfarmerphoto.net/35MMBoard/messages/2dqtr99/3896.ht
ml
http://www.lynnfarmerphoto.net/35MMBoard/messages/3dqtr99/5343.ht
ml
http://www.minox.org/bokeh.html
http://www.pathcom.co
m/~vhchan/bokeh.html
htt
p://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000fFO
http://people.sm
u.edu/rmonagha/mf/cameras.html
Have a nice Bokeh!
-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), November 21, 2001.
Okay, here we go again => Don't know why all that formatting
here often leaves something undone.
-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), November 21, 2001.
Philip,
Only in the last couple of years have I seen the term "bokeh"
applied to describe the out-of-focus areas of a picture. But 30
years ago, when shooting 500mm mirror telephotos, we noticed that the
out-of-focus areas were populated with small "donut shaped"
highlights. I never heard a specific term applied to it but that was
apparently also bokeh. Most people disliked that particular type of
bokeh. It didn't bother me because using mirror lenses was the only
way I could then afford good quality long telephotos. LB
-- Luther Berry (lberrytx@aol.com), November 21, 2001.
Thanks everybody, I suspected a lot of this. Having looked back at
old photos taken with different cameras I can see 'good' and 'bad'
bokeh.
My first SLR was an old Praktika with a few nice Zeiss lenses and
they always looked nice even when I didn't know quite what I was
doing with it. The Canon that replaced was HORRIBLE, even sharp
pictures never felt right. Fortunately I had the good sense and luck
to replace it with my SL a year later.
It all seems to make perfect sense now, the old Zeiss lenses - my SL -
and a friend's 'Blad, always looked good.
Yes we are spoilt by Leica, I'll never have anything else.
-- Philip Woodcock (phil@pushbar.demon.co.uk), November 21, 2001.
One of the best "bokeh" producing lenses I own is my current 85mm
f1.8 AFD Nikkor, so German manufacturers do not have the market
cornered on pleasing out of focus highlights.
-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), November 22, 2001.
Moderation questions? read the FAQ