Also interesting to see Bokeh introduced into computer-generated images.
Is Bokeh an overated property of an image?
- Thread starter tlitody
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 230
- Views 5K
tlitody
Well-known
Funny you should say that, I exhibited a few black and white landscape images some years ago in a little local community gallery. You' would be amazed at the number of paintings that appeared the following years using the type of composition that I used for my landscapes.
Now it might have just been my imagination but I don't think so. Fact is that every genre of art takes it's "inspiration" from other artists. At least the run of the mill sunday afternoon painters and photographers do. Very very few photograph or paint anything in a truly original style. Especially prevalent in graphic arts and website design where virtually everything is a copy or rehash of someone elses work. Pretty boring really.
There is a great little history of photographers site at: http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/
specifically look at the entry for Nadar and read it. http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/nadar.htm
now the question becomes: did photography and specifically grain forming the image, inspire pointillism in the impressionistic movement? I like to think so but I have no evidence for it.
Last edited:
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
That's something I constantly look at with lots of interest... Lately (movies, TV...) it's getting better and better... Or the act of defocusing and focusing again (like when emulating the view through a camera, binoculars or a microscope: hard!...): I imagine it's difficult to create all that without real optics, because it's about a delicate progression at different distances, but some emulations are a lot better than others... I can't imagine algorithms or any way to have that tool ready for different options in a program... I guess it would mean loads of memory to process lots of high resolution images... I'm always expecting new advances there... I had never heard anyone mention it...
Cheers,
Juan
RayPA
Ignore It (It'll go away)
I have to look at the other replies in this thread, because I'm very surprised by the number of 'Yes' votes. 😕 This is a no-brainer.
/
/
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
Ray,
I guess all of us considering bokeh is overrated and answering yes, really like and prefer calmed bokeh, and own and give high value from a photographic point of view to our best bokeh lenses... Anytime I use my Nikkor 105 2.5 or my Zeiss 150 2.8 Sonnar, I shoot considering their great bokeh, and I confess I bought my Leica 90 Summicron because of its portrait rendering and amazingly soft bokeh... Maybe all of us "yes people" are saying, is just that creating an image requires a lot more than bokeh and lens behavior... Now after all the talking I think the "no" is just as valid... We all agree much more than words seem to reflect... And all of us know and agree bad bokeh can be truly problematic sometimes with some subjects and tones... It's not overrated, OK, I reconsidered it: bokeh has its relevance.
Cheers,
Juan
Last edited:
Neare
Well-known
The Japanese person who coined it won't say anything shot below f2.8 has bokeh - that is definitely oof areas instead.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bokeh&ss=2
I think we should define bokeh by the types of images that are shown here. I'm quite certain that Bokeh and shooting wide open go hand in hand too.
ferider
Veteran
I think Apfelstrudel is over-rated.
I think so, as at the time there were already experiments in color photography. I believe the Pointilists were exploring how we perceive color. One might also think of today's digital camera sensor arrays as akin to Pointilism....
That would hard to swallow... I LOVE apfelstrudel! 😀
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
With or without bokeh, NEVER overrated... 🙂
Not very easy to find a good one here...
Cheers,
Juan
Not very easy to find a good one here...
Cheers,
Juan
x-ray
Veteran
For a lot of the folks here the "bokeh" is the image. For me it makes no difference. My subject that's in focus is the #1 most important thing.
Steve M.
Veteran
I think that a lot of people think bokeh isn't that important....until they get a lens w/ bad, ugly, busy bokeh. Happened to me a few times (a Summitar and, strangely enough, a Pentax 50 M42 lens), and man, I couldn't rest until I sold them.
andredossantos
Well-known
I guess I'm kind of surprised that some have said that even a photo with an exceptional subject would be ruined and/or disregarded due to bad bokeh.
I can totally see the merit on both sides of the issue--sometimes for certain photos smooth OOF rendition enhances the quality of the shot. At the same time I also agree that an excellent image doesn't need any help from areas that are out of focus.
I guess that's why I'm kind've surprised. But hey, if you're a bokeh lover to that extreme do and think and feel whatever makes you happy!
I can totally see the merit on both sides of the issue--sometimes for certain photos smooth OOF rendition enhances the quality of the shot. At the same time I also agree that an excellent image doesn't need any help from areas that are out of focus.
I guess that's why I'm kind've surprised. But hey, if you're a bokeh lover to that extreme do and think and feel whatever makes you happy!
leicashot
Well-known
Wow, 45% of the current vote says it IS overrated but I bet 95% of them are kidding themselves. This is definitely the WRONG forum to ask such a question, unless you're wanting a totally biased response.
The photographer in me, really couldn't care less, and I don't when shooting on my Nikon D3s, but when I switch to the Leica M, my view changes. I don't care about it so much during the shooting proces, only in the PP process, and after visiting forums, like this one ;-)
IMHO, too many people shoot 'for' bokeh instead of 'for the subject' and I see all too many boring bokeh images being posted. That being said this is a forum geared towards 'gear heads', me being one of them, and the bokeh topic is ALWAYS a major interest for such 'geared photographers'.
The photographer in me, really couldn't care less, and I don't when shooting on my Nikon D3s, but when I switch to the Leica M, my view changes. I don't care about it so much during the shooting proces, only in the PP process, and after visiting forums, like this one ;-)
IMHO, too many people shoot 'for' bokeh instead of 'for the subject' and I see all too many boring bokeh images being posted. That being said this is a forum geared towards 'gear heads', me being one of them, and the bokeh topic is ALWAYS a major interest for such 'geared photographers'.
leicashot
Well-known
Strangely enough people love the 50/1.4 ASPH for it's super clean smooth transition and other also love the Sonnar for the opposite. Ironically there are many who find the Nokton 1.1 boring, when it's quite similar to the Lux ASPH, so go figure what 'good' bokeh actually is.
IMHO, good bokeh is either super perfect, like the 50 Lux ASPH or crazy like the Noctilux 1.0. Either way, bokeh is overrated by amatuers and gear heads alike. Most working Pros couldn't care less as long as they're taking good images.
Nikkor AIS
Nikkor AIS
While getting the subject "in" focus is often the focus (pardon the pun) of the image. I hardly see how the the rest of the image dosnt matter. It all matters. Every bit of it. The bokeh haters are very dismissive of work that focus on this element of the image. To each his own. I feel that gaining an understanding dare I say an appreciation for bokeh. Can only make a photographers images stronger and more meaningful.
X-ray love your work. Geat images. Im going to go back and finsh pouring through your galllery.
X-ray love your work. Geat images. Im going to go back and finsh pouring through your galllery.
Last edited:
Steve Karr
Film tank shaker
Ha! How can only the in-focus part be important. Everything is the image, sharp, un sharp & the most important part the transition between the two.
I guess if you only like your wife's feet you can ignore the third-eye-thing'ie for the most part, right?
It's the space between the notes that makes the music.
I guess if you only like your wife's feet you can ignore the third-eye-thing'ie for the most part, right?
It's the space between the notes that makes the music.
ampguy
Veteran
no, this is wrong
no, this is wrong
We Japanese know exactly what it means and look likes.
But there are not analogous words in the newer western languages, so we have no way to describe them to you.
gomen ne, naruhodo, sumimasen, muzukashii desu nee
no, this is wrong
We Japanese know exactly what it means and look likes.
But there are not analogous words in the newer western languages, so we have no way to describe them to you.
gomen ne, naruhodo, sumimasen, muzukashii desu nee
leicashot
Well-known
Not to say the OOF area is 'not' important, but like the topic says, it's somewhat 'overrated' for sure by many. What's 'more' important is 'what is' OOF as opposed to 'how' it looks. As long as the OOF objects and subjects are rendered accurately, then I'm happy, from a documentary perspective. From a portrait perspective many prefer a 'crazy' looking distorted OOF bokeh.
Everything is subjective and YES it is overrated by most on this forum, and has only grown since the introduction of digital photography, since gear/geek talk has over-thrown 'actual photography' talk.
historicist
Well-known
Isn't Bokeh just a perfectly ordinary, everyday word in Japanese which means 'fuzzy'?
There's an article in German here or google translated which implies that the bokeh was first used as a photographic term in Japan in the 60s and 70s and meant something like camera shake or blur, i.e. quite literally fuzzy.
Reading between the lines, it was then part of a radical aesthetic which aimed at some kind of critique of the modernisation of post-war Japanese society, i.e. everything grainy blurry and raw rather than beautiful and glossy.
My guess is that more recently, as the shallow depth of field look got more popular and people started to need a word to describe how different lenses rendered the oof area, bokeh got co-opted as a word which was already familiar in a photographic context and meant something vaguely similar.
While I'm guessing I'd speculate that this was done in the west rather than in Japan - bokeh would have been a vaguely familiar term to those who were intimate with photography in the US or Europe but the difference between the two uses seems to be a little to great to have been done either by a Japanese-speaker or someone very familiar with the older usage.
Now given that I don't speak Japanese or know anything about Japanese photography of the 60s and 70s, this is all pure speculation 😉
There's an article in German here or google translated which implies that the bokeh was first used as a photographic term in Japan in the 60s and 70s and meant something like camera shake or blur, i.e. quite literally fuzzy.
Reading between the lines, it was then part of a radical aesthetic which aimed at some kind of critique of the modernisation of post-war Japanese society, i.e. everything grainy blurry and raw rather than beautiful and glossy.
My guess is that more recently, as the shallow depth of field look got more popular and people started to need a word to describe how different lenses rendered the oof area, bokeh got co-opted as a word which was already familiar in a photographic context and meant something vaguely similar.
While I'm guessing I'd speculate that this was done in the west rather than in Japan - bokeh would have been a vaguely familiar term to those who were intimate with photography in the US or Europe but the difference between the two uses seems to be a little to great to have been done either by a Japanese-speaker or someone very familiar with the older usage.
Now given that I don't speak Japanese or know anything about Japanese photography of the 60s and 70s, this is all pure speculation 😉