Originally posted by Ann:
Apparently we are not the only ones who like to argue about bokeh. |
Apparently you have a gift for understatement. :)
Personally, I agree with what Shash had to say about it in the Photo.net thread...
Sasvata (Shash) Chatterjee , Jan 09, 2009; 10:33 a.m.
Wow, over the years, it isn't even funny how many times I have seen this topic on various forums ("fora" ? ). I think it is fitting that we feel so "boke" about "bokeh", irony in real life. Of course, each one of us is a combined photography and Japanese maven (A lot of us use and see Japanese cameras, ergo...), so we always pontificate "the" definition of bokeh. So, here's my correct definition (OK, here's the requisite ":-)" for those that lack the tongue-in-cheek detector gene):
- "bokeh" is nothing but the out of focus area. It does not refer to the "quality of the out of focus area", but just the out of focus area itself (see next point). At least this is what makes sense from the equivalent Japanese.
- When someone analyzes a picture and talks about the "quality of the bokeh" they are indeed analyzing the "quality of the out of focus area". The rendering of out of areas is a function of the lens as well as the subject and lighting. It does not make sense to me that "bokeh" really means "quality of bokeh"....some folks please get THAT out of your brain (:-)).
- To really see differences in the quality of bokeh that a lens provides, you need an out-of-focus background with specular highlights. If you have a background with smooth tones, little contrast and uniform lighting then almost any lens will provide smooth and pleasing bokeh as long as you are using the wider apertures to create the bokeh in the first place. But you really need a background with abrupt changes in tone/color as well as point-sources-of-light either directly radiating or reflecting light (of course we don't always have perfect point-sources, but the closer the approximation the better for judging bokeh) to see the harshness/smoothness/sphericality of those point sources.
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