bokeh backlash?

[NiccaFile]

How about No Bow-Key?

How about No Bow-Key?

Humm..Nice topic for discussion..

 

[DougFord]

[FONT=&quot]For me, Bokeh is a singular pictorial element among many. It’s a technical byproduct of lens design. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]There are both creative and technical reasons to eliminate all OOF areas or not; to any degree.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Be it good bokeh, bad bokeh, lots’a bokeh or no bokeh. Of the photographs that interest me, the existence or non-existence of bokeh is integral to the photograph.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bokeh backlash?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I would suggest quite the opposite. Large ‘sensored’ compact cameras are being unleashed onto the market. Fast lenses and big sensors signal the dawn of the NEW AGE of BOKEH. From this point forward the bokeh revival commences. 🙄[/FONT]

 

[Benjamin]

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.

Yes, and I would have said a beautiful women indeed, but a shame about the dress.

Or, should that be a shame about the bokeh??

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Nominated to write a book on Lenses! It will have to wait until I retire.

Sure, now Fashion Photography is all about Bokeh.

Maybe I should put together a lens portfolio for them.

Sonnar,

Summar,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcamerapictures/3061728343/

That should be fashionable enough. Until the book comes out.

 

[newsgrunt]

I'm curious to know how many rf users are experienced enough to know what oof areas or bokeh will look like at any given aperture at any given focus distance with any given background. It's not as if we can see it in the vf...

With slrs, it's a no brainer, wysiwyg more or less if you use the stop down or preview. I've been at this game a number of years and don't think I could predict or tell someone exactly how the oof areas will look. As long as the main subject/ object is what people go to , I'm not particularly fussed re: bokeh.

 

[Benjamin]

I'm curious to know how many rf users are experienced enough to know what oof areas or bokeh will look like at any given aperture at any given focus distance with any given background. It's not as if we can see it in the vf...

With slrs, it's a no brainer, wysiwyg more or less if you use the stop down or preview. I've been at this game a number of years and don't think I could predict or tell someone exactly how the oof areas will look. As long as the main subject/ object is what people go to , I'm not particularly fussed re: bokeh.

I just spin the camera round in circles mid-exposure, you know..

 

[bmattock]

I'm curious to know how many rf users are experienced enough to know what oof areas or bokeh will look like at any given aperture at any given focus distance with any given background. It's not as if we can see it in the vf...

With slrs, it's a no brainer, wysiwyg more or less if you use the stop down or preview. I've been at this game a number of years and don't think I could predict or tell someone exactly how the oof areas will look. As long as the main subject/ object is what people go to , I'm not particularly fussed re: bokeh.

If you can bracket your exposure, you can bracket your f-stop. It's really not that hard.

 

[charjohncarter]

Nominated to write a book on Lenses! It will have to wait until I retire.

Sure, now Fashion Photography is all about Bokeh.

Maybe I should put together a lens portfolio for them.

Sonnar,

Summar,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcamerapictures/3061728343/

That should be fashionable enough. Until the book comes out.

I like lens (Summar) number 2, but maybe it is the fashion photo style that does it.

 

[newsgrunt]

If you can bracket your exposure, you can bracket your f-stop. It's really not that hard.

But that doesn't have anything to do with being able to predetermine what bokeh will look like at say f5.6 at 5 feet ?

If people can't preview what an image will look like when using rf cameras are they just hoping the oof areas will look good when the film is processed ? It's all just luck then ?

 

[Roger Hicks]

But that doesn't have anything to do with being able to predetermine what bokeh will look like at say f5.6 at 5 feet ?

If people can't preview what an image will look like when using rf cameras are they just hoping the oof areas will look good when the film is processed ? It's all just luck then ?

That and possibly practice, and not necessarily all that much practice. I decided to shoot my Thambar mostly at f/6.3 to f/9, after only a few dozen pictures. Distinguishing between near background o-o-f and far background o-o-f took no longer.

Cheers,

R.

 

[peterc]

I appreciate good OOF performance, but I refuse to call it bokeh.

 

[back alley]

I appreciate good OOF performance, but I refuse to call it bokeh.

finally, an answer that i can live with!!!
:angel:

 

[Sonnar Brian]

But that doesn't have anything to do with being able to predetermine what bokeh will look like at say f5.6 at 5 feet ?

If people can't preview what an image will look like when using rf cameras are they just hoping the oof areas will look good when the film is processed ? It's all just luck then ?

It's not all that hard to predetermine, but it is best done with taking some test shots to characterize the lens first. It's kind of like knowing depth of field when shooting with anything but an SLR with DOF preview. Just factor in the lenses tendency for astigmatism to make circles into footballs, and corrections for spherical aberration to make then into rings.

 

[bmattock]

But that doesn't have anything to do with being able to predetermine what bokeh will look like at say f5.6 at 5 feet ?

Experience and DoF charts, says I.

If people can't preview what an image will look like when using rf cameras are they just hoping the oof areas will look good when the film is processed ? It's all just luck then ?

Not if you know what you're doing. If you don't, might as well throw your camera away and buy a point-and-shoot, since you clearly don't care to master your craft.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I appreciate good OOF performance, but I refuse to call it bokeh.

I appreciate a good cup of coffee, but I refuse to call it cup-o-Joe. 😉


Conversely, I know people in Minne-so-tah who enjoy a good can of soda, but they refuse to call it soda. I refuse to call it pop.

Things are what they are, no matter what prejudices people have on the words they use, use as prejudice, or are prejudiced against using them.

 

[mfunnell]

Things are what they are, no matter what prejudices people have on the words they use, use as prejudice, or are prejudiced against using them.

On the other hand, it seems to me that a bit of precision in the use of words might be helpful. For example, it had never occurred to me until this thread that "bokeh" was simply an indication that a photo has out-of-focus elements in the frame. I thought the term, while not exactly precise in itself, more clearly delimited an area of discussion.

But I'm now convinced that "bokeh" discussions turn into fuzzy and ill-defined talk about fuzzy and ill-determined concepts of fuzziness and lack of definition in photographs. I think I'll go back to reading Not Even Wrong to clear my head. At least Dr Woit knows what he doesn't like, and why.

...Mike

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

And ain't dat da Truth.

 

[Alberti]

Hi,
Bokeh matters as it is a translation of the attractiveness of the whole picture with foreground and background. And as Matisse the painter said, the space between is as important as the form.
The girl playing violin, is very nice as it renders the thinking spirit very much. Applause.
I two years back bought a Elmar 90Macro, though increadibly sharp, when stopped a little bit down = excellent; (plate 1)

but wide open it has a type of ring halo for the front OOF. (plate 2) So I have to frame carefully.

Next time (today that is, or at least this week) I will decide Elmarit 28mm against Zeiss 25MM. What to look for? Not sharpness, both are sharp according to the MTF. It is the rendering. Or should I go for the softer Zeiss 28mm?

It makes me mad.
I can't find real good pictures at e.g. Flickr to compare. Often low res, often shopped, cropped and not wide open. Or the scene is not interesting. I shoot mostly at full aperture, great fun, and good expression.

So a little poll in between:

I favour the bokeh of:
Elmarit 28mm
Zeiss Biogon 28mm
Zeiss Biogon 25mm
VC Color Skopar 25mm

alberti

 

[lorriman]

Bokeh for me is the backdrop to my subject and so must not distract attention to itself.

I don't look for lenses with 'interesting' or 'beautiful' bokeh like some nutters: I choose lenses where the bokeh isn't intrusive. I want my bokeh to be effectively invisible: to get out of the way of my subject. In my pictures the subject is normally distinct from the context and the bokeh needs to reflect that. Since the oof areas of my pictures are an important element of my composition - I even use stop-down metering on my SLRs to have ultimate artistic control of it - so bokeh is an important consideration when choosing a lens.

I am a bokeh fanatic: but the most desirable bokeh to me is boring bokeh.

 

[Turtle]

No, more like it doesn't make sense to argue that fish-n-chips places are not restaurants just because you don't personally like them, and railing against them on the basis of their unworthiness is not likely to make them go away. People like what they like, whether one approves of that or not.



You apply your own standards of 'rewarding' to others and suggest that they ought to like what you like. They don't. They don't like what I like, either. It's a burden, but I'm getting used to it.



My comment is based on what I perceive as the reality that most photographs are not competing for artistic awards. Speaking only for myself, I 'bother' because I don't really pay attention to what others are doing or what they like, I just do what I like to do.

It should be fairly obvious that I was not suggesting that fish'n chip shops/restaurants are not restaurants, but using a simple term to differentiate between them and 'those that don't do fish in newspaper.' I love fish and chips.

Once again, it should be obvious that I realise that others find endless bokeh shots of coffee cups interesting, but also that I am making an argument for opening ones mind to other things. Is there something terribly wrong with this? After all, it is my opinion which you can take or leave as you wish, but I am every bit as entitled to hold it as you are the viewpoint that the only thing that matters is 'what you like.' That, IMHO, is fine, unless you actually want to achieve anything outside of your own head. There is also more that a whiff of arrogance about it that in a perverse way totally dismisses the views of others (the complete opposite of what you claim to do).

There is surely a happy medium, where ultimately we please ourselves but are open to change and stretching our horizons. Often the inspiration to do so comes from other people, other things or those things which are not familiar or necessary appetizing to us at the first tasting. I do care what people think of my images because I do enjoy seeing others enjoy them. I aim to produce images that satisfy me and others at the same time without any obvious compromise on my part. how can you possibly hope to progress with your own journey if you only operate within your own comfort zone? I have very different views about my formal education now that at the time. I did not always enjoy it at the time, but am grateful for it now. I hate to think what would have happened if everything i did was 'as good as it needs to be because I liked it.'

If I was the last human on earth, I would agree with your views, but I am not. I do not know everything and am happy for others to offer their advice on my shortcomings, which I can take or leave. Maybe in years to come I, from a purely selfish perspective, will be glad of it. I want that process of self-improvement which I alone cannot accomplish - do you?