Comments on: Bokeh. What the hell is it?

By: Izabella

Izabella — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:29:58 +0000

I found this site did a great job of explaining bokeh and how imperfect lenses can often produce better bokeh:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/bokeh.htm

By: Robert Carey

Robert Carey — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:21:10 +0000

Thank you. — Yes… yes, but you know what I mean. Some people are happy if they break 80 in their golf game, but they wont be on the PGA Tour any time soon. So that said, where do you think the shot would rank on a 10 scale? 10 being perfect, 1 being ‘I wouldn’t want my name anywhere near it’.

By: John Watson

John Watson — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:49:19 +0000

It’s “good” if you like it. Beautiful bokeh is in the eye of the beholder.

By: Robert Carey

Robert Carey — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:20:02 +0000

So I totally get the idea of bokeh… but I still have a hard time identifying good vs. bad sometimes. Please take a look at this image and tell me what you think. Good bokeh or bad bokeh? I see a nice soft bg, but I do see some distracting lines too. My walk-around lens is a Sigma 18-200 f3.5-5.6 OS (http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3324&navigator=6), which is what I used in this shot (http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/1570246). Thanks!

By: Klaus Shuler

Klaus Shuler — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:12:17 +0000

Bokeh is most affected by spherical aberration of a lens, an intrinsic property. THis is one reason expensive lenses are expensive. Spherical aberration is when the light rays hitting the outside of the lens focus closer than the focal point, leading to either a nice smooth blur for background objects, or a ring for foreground objects. Most lenses are slightly overcorrected for spherical aberration, leading to rings of light in the background, and this leads to most of the problems we see in images with “bad bokeh.” For useful details and diagrams, see: http://bokehtests.com/Site/About_Bokeh.html

Klaus

By: 2. Good bokeh or bad bokeh « Bath Portraiture Class

2. Good bokeh or bad bokeh « Bath Portraiture Class — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:53:12 +0000

[...] 2. Good bokeh or bad bokeh Perhaps I did not explain bokeh that well, this is the Wikipedia definition. There are some examples of good and bad bokeh on this site. [...]

By: John Watson

John Watson — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:44:36 +0000

Bokeh refers the quality of the entire out of focus area. Every bit of light coming from the background creates a blurry circle. The highlights just stand out because they are brighter.

By: shenmue

shenmue — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:17:43 +0000

so, which one actually the bokeh is? is it that blur background or is it that blurry circle highlight in the blur background?
or, yes u can say that bokeh is no different with a blur background?. is it just another name of a blur BG?

By: SeanS

SeanS — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 01:38:40 +0000

dave – pls post, it’d be informative… I suspect most of my bokeh’s have been of the bad sort…

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:53:19 +0000

Since bokeh is something you notice mostly when it’s bad, it would be good to put an example of bad bokeh as well. I have some examples I can upload from my Canon f/1.8 mkII lens; it’s a nice sharp lens, but the 5-blade iris, oddly-shaped field of focus, and diverging radial and axial MTF characteristics make for bad bokeh in certain situations, particularly with really bright out of focus highlights. The result is a sort of “vibrating” effect that distracts from the subject.