bokeh backlash?

bokeh backlash?

  • i hate everything about bokeh

    Votes: 8 4.7%

  • bokeh is real and i choose my lenses accordingly

    Votes: 96 55.8%

  • it's there but so what?!

    Votes: 60 34.9%

  • we need to hurt mike johnson for starting this whole thing!!

    Votes: 8 4.7%
  • Total voters
    172
  • Poll closed .
peterm1 said:
Some lenses I have bought have great bokeh and it jumps up and bobs you in the nose.
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Dear Peter,

Any bokeh that 'jumps up and bobs you in the nose' is not good bokeh as far as I am concerned. That bokeh is best which is least obtrusive -- as it is in your shot.

Cheers,

R.
 
Bokeh is the only RFF cliché that gets your hair rising?

How about emulating HCB, pre-asph Summilux, decisive moments, street photography, Leica photography (how can that be a style?), camera straps, half-cases, Leica v. ZI v. Bessa, Erwin Puts v. Ken Rockwell, are-you-listening-Leica?-speculations, lens comparisons, "girlfriend look" photos, espresso cups shots, GAS, camera porn, "glow" and/or 3D so-called look, What-Should-I-Use-to-do-my-work threads, is-a-normal-lens-35mm-or-50mm? threads, etc?

Bokeh isn't the only annoying obsession to hurdle over to find interesting stuff on this forum. Brace yourself.

(To my own discharge, I actually quite like bokeh examples. Bokeh discussions, on the other hand, are next to useless.)
 
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Roger Hicks said:
Dear Peter,

Any bokeh that 'jumps up and bobs you in the nose' is not good bokeh as far as I am concerned. That bokeh is best which is least obtrusive -- as it is in your shot.

Cheers,

R.
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Yes but it jumps up and bobs me in the nose in a very soft and mooshy way. :^)

It is nice bokeh but I think its never the less quite strong bokeh - which is hard for me to explain except in the terms I mentioned in my post about old glass - especially Sonnar glass (although not exclusively so.) I often refer people to an image in the book "Collecting and Using Classic Cameras" by Ivor Matanle (not the one about old SLRs - the other one) and in this book on page 21 there is a lovely black and white photo of a girl on a swing, shot with a medium format Rolleicord and a 3.5 coated Xenar. For me the bokeh is lovely in this image and the girl's image is both sharp and slightly soft in the wonderful way that some lenses have of achieving that near impossible balancing act. Somehow I think of the bokeh in this image as being unobtrusive yet quite magical.
 
Bok is and forever will be something that people who dont know anything about photography but yet need to appear sophisticated about it, use to convey this ruse.

a photograph is a photograph is a photograph. some have more subject isolation than others and beyond that Im consistently at a loss to see what the discussion is about. This crap is definitley the photo equivalent of all the stuff audiophiles talk about.
 
Is it a science or just scientists that know nothing about what they are advising? There is a lot of that going around these days: economics, climatology, bokey experts, etc.
 
Thirded

This is something I couldn't agree less.
Let me quote you again please

"In most good pictures it is at best very secondary, and it is often unnoticeable, which is as it should be. It's like the fashion designer who said that if a woman wore one of the dresses he had designed, and people said, "What a beautiful dress," he had failed, but if they said, "What a beautiful woman," he had succeeded.

If bokeh is one of the first things you notice, the chances are that either it's not a good picture, or you are pointlessly obsessed with it." by Roger Hicks 2009

Roger Hicks said:
Seconded. In most good pictures it is at best very secondary, and it is often unnoticeable, which is as it should be. It's like the fashion designer who said that if a woman wore one of the dresses he had designed, and people said, "What a beautiful dress," he had failed, but if they said, "What a beautiful woman," he had succeeded.

If bokeh is one of the first things you notice, the chances are that either it's not a good picture, or you are pointlessly obsessed with it.

EDIT: Brilliant idea for a thread, by the way -- I wish I'd thought of it! -- and one of the few polls in which I take any interest whatsoever.

Cheers,

R.
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WoolenMammoth said:
Bok is and forever will be something that people who dont know anything about photography but yet need to appear sophisticated about it, use to convey this ruse.

a photograph is a photograph is a photograph. some have more subject isolation than others and beyond that Im consistently at a loss to see what the discussion is about. This crap is definitley the photo equivalent of all the stuff audiophiles talk about.
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Whatever. If you really think "a photograph is a photograph is a photograph", then you have no ability to appreciate any form of visual art. It amazes me how bigoted, narrow minded, ignorant, and visually illiterate that a lot of photographs are. No wonder photography wasn't regarded as art for the first 100 yrs of its existence.
 
Bokeh is a tool you can use in your photos if you wish to do so. And it is true that some lenses have good bokeh and some have bad bokeh.

I suspect the current fascination with bokeh is because modern point-and-shoots are basically devoid of it, due to their minuscule sensor sizes.
 
Some people must find it interesting and look for specific lenses. Most people do not care about it, and do not demand pleasing bokeh in lenses. Otherwise, every lens would be under-corrected for spherical aberration.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Whatever. If you really think "a photograph is a photograph is a photograph", then you have no ability to appreciate any form of visual art.
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chris, if you saw my work you'd probably apologize for publishing such a presumptuous statement. Its BS like this which is the primary reason I elect to not show my work here. And I do believe that a photograph is a photograph is a photograph, there is something good and bad to be taken out of everything.

If it suddenly became real trendy to talk about acutance and you had to hear some hipster holding court in a bar about how his edges are so special, that would get just as tiring as all the people using this trendy item to focus on in their fo-sophisticated analysis of photography. There are obviously some very educated and experienced people out there who have something positive to contribute on the subject but when I hear the word now, I almost always tune out because its generally followed by a bunch of drivel that doesnt come from earned experience at all.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
Some people must find it interesting and look for specific lenses. Most people do not care about it, and do not demand pleasing bokeh in lenses. Otherwise, every lens would be under-corrected for spherical aberration.
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Now, this is a scientist that at least has some knowledge, Kudos.
 
Bokeh was interesting to me when I was first introduced to the concept (as us Westerners sort of understand it). I started to notice it, and spent a bunch of rolls of film exploring it. Through these explorations I believe I came to a better knowledge of composition, DOF and the difference between the way I see and the way the camera catches an image. I shoot a lot of stuff in low light, so yes - I care about how the lenses I use render OOF.
 
To me Bokeh is important. I like water - looking at it, seeing how fluid it is and bokeh is sort of like that as well. Nearly every lens I have produces bokeh that I like - and it took me a number of them to try to get to a current selection I have. From 21 to 105mm. Some lenses do a better job than others in this respect to me. Most of my lenses are Hexanons and I think every one has a very nice bokeh. This is personal preference - I unrestand that to some people this makes no sense. But thats what I like and thats what I'm sticking with. At least for now. And it all started with so called "water lens" - m-Rokkor 40/2.
 
Lenses exhibit out of focus characteristics differently. It's not in our heads, it's real. Compare a RF canon 50mm 1.2 to a new canon 50mm f1.2L and you'll see out of focus parts in the image are rendered very differently. I pay attention to how lenses do this, and it is part of my process for choosing lenses.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Whatever. If you really think "a photograph is a photograph is a photograph", then you have no ability to appreciate any form of visual art. It amazes me how bigoted, narrow minded, ignorant, and visually illiterate that a lot of photographs are. No wonder photography wasn't regarded as art for the first 100 yrs of its existence.
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100% agree.

It's a part of the art wether people like it or not. People on here spend years and years perfecting certain developer and film combos so they can get a certain amount of grain or density or contrast in their negs but they can say that out of focus rendering of lenses isn't a real technical factor in photography.

Of course it is. Everything that contributes to a photograph is a factor.

Any good artist in any industry knows his tools and carefully selects them to get the best end product they can get. The more they can control the process in which they arrive at that end product, the more they can control the outcome.

I think some people find it romantic and "pure" to the old ways of photography to be able to say they don't care or don't believe in it... or something.
 
I have to say I get a kick out of it when someone offers a critique of a photo with something like: "Nice bokeh."
If that's the best thing a photo has going for it, it's probably time to toss it in the trash.

Still, I'll agree with Roland. And I'll say that if you don't view selective focus as a tool in your photographic arsenal - you are simply missing out on an opportunity to make yourself a better photographer.
We do it all the time with our own eyes when we focus on one element of a particular scene. Why shouldn't we do the same thing with our photographs?
It is your job as a photographer to show me what you want me to see in your image. Don't show me a street. Show me something on the street that you believe is worth looking at.
 
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