Is Bokeh an overated property of an image?

Is Bokeh an overated property of an image?

  • Yes

    Votes: 191 51.8%

  • No

    Votes: 157 42.5%

  • I used to be decisive but I'm not so sure now

    Votes: 21 5.7%
  • Total voters
    369
  • Poll closed .
I think whatever makes a good image result in a .... good image; however, sometimes the honeymoon is over too quickly and we find ourselves left with an image that employs 'a trick' Truly great images dont generally do that and very few truly great images would be less great were if not for less perfect bokeh (if they have any that it). I would go so far as to say that some lenses produce bokeh that I often find offensive, but they are few and far between.
 
Not overrated at all. The bokeh is an important link in the image chain.



Nikkor 24 1.4 AF-D @ 1.4 on D3



Nikkor 300 2.0 IF-ED AIS @ 2.0 on D3







50 1.0 Noctilux on Leica M7

[URL="http://rogaltacdesign.smugmug.com/Other/Early-Work/11862178_etGoA#841522298_vdumS-A-LB"]

And bokeh is not a fad 😱. I've been loving the smooth out-of-focus blur since reading National Geographic magazines when I was a kid. And personally loving the bokeh that certain lenses gave me, and others.
Furthermore, I've seen large-format portraits taken over 80 years ago that exhibit bokeh.

Saying "bokeh" doesn't matter is like saying the point of focus doesn't matter. Or the choice of ... OO. Any of the elements that make an interesting photo.

I've noticed that there is a certain type of person on the forums, whom I have labelled a bokeh hater 😛, who think/feel/exclaim to anyone who will listen that bokeh isn't important.

I agree that it's kind of silly to be obsessive on a single element of the photographic process. But I have noticed that an emotional response to a photograph can be profoundly impacted by "bokeh."

Gregory
 
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If it is part of the image, it is important to the image. It alone, be it content, sharpness, or bokeh, will not suffice.
 
Nikkor AIS said:
I agree that it's kind of silly to obsessive on a single element of the photographic process. But I have notice that is emotional repsonse to a photograph can be profoundly impacted by "bokeh".

Gregory
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Dear Gregory,

Some people are much more sensitive to it than others -- I'm one of the less sensitive ones -- and I think that people like me are quite easily convinced that those who drone on at length about bokeh are doing so because there's ****-all else to recommend their images.

In other words, while I completely agree that bokeh can often be a non-negligible component of an image, there are many times when it is irrelevant, and that (as you say) to become obsessive about it is pretty silly. It is quite easy to focus on ANY aspect of an image as the be-all and end-all, and to persuade yourself that things like grain, sharpness, bokeh, etc., matter more than they do, thereby losing sight of the image as a whole.

Cheers,

R
 
Roger Hicks said:
... and that (as you say) to become obsessive about it is pretty silly. It is quite easy to focus on ANY aspect of an image as the be-all and end-all, and ...
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This, unfortuantely, is a human tendency when anyone critiques anything.

It is particularly confounding when one critique is a focused analysis and another is an evaluation of the "gestalt". Even more confounding is when a third party confuses the two.
 
Since I have so few lens choices for my cameras--Widelux, Mamiya 6, Horseman SW612, Hexar AF--and not that much choice of apertures when shooting, bokeh really is not an issue. When looking at my work, I have never thought, "gee, that picture would have be good if it weren't for the bokeh."

BTW, bokeh is not simply a shallow depth of field. Regardless of the depth of field, bokeh is the rending of the out of focus area.
 
Gumby said:
This, unfortuantely, is a human tendency when anyone critiques anything.
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Dear Ed,

Much more of a tendency, surely, when there is very little else to say about an image. Rather than saying it's dull, derivative, pointless and uninteresting, one can concentrate on the tonality, grain or bokeh.

Cheers,

R.
 
yoku

yoku

tabechatta, gochi so sama de****a 😉

247593245_e5RoX-L.jpg


maddoc said:
... 旨味 ... a hearty meal ! 🙂
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no

no

It just means that the person stating or implying something is overrated cannot do it, but wishes they could.

I think running a mile in under 4 minutes is overrated.

Turtle said:
.. if someone says something is overrated it does not mean that it does not have a place or cannot be important.
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Pickett Wilson said:
More interested in what is in focus that what is not. The whole Bokeh thing is a relatively recent obsession.
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Then recent means 145 years or so. Long before sharpness, resolution and similar metrics became popular obsessions, photographers shopped for lenses with interesting signatures, and there were many different signatures available.

Some of us, although a little younger than 145 years, still appreciate a certain look. It is all part of the vocabulary.
 
tlitody said:
[...] The bokeh is just the out of focus area which serves to isolate the main subject bringing it foward and to the viewers attention. Whether the bokeh is smooth and creamy or swirly is hardly the point of the image in most cases.
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That sounds like a person who says, "Why sing words when you can just say them?"
 
I'm not sure why gear heads are so obsessed with bokeh when there are soul and stories in the photos to be observed.

I've never seen any award winning photo that is based on how good the bokeh is rendered.

I think bokeh-obsession is similar to air-guitar and air-sex obsession 🙂
 
Gumby said:
Yes, that's my point. I now will eat my snack and enjoy the umami... whatever that is. 🙂
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Umami is *very* well defined. It is the taste of protein. Specifically, it's the taste of glutamate (an amino acid). You have taste receptors on your tongue for sour, salty, sweet, and umami. [Edit: and bitter, too; how could I, of all people, forget bitter? ;-) ]

Interestingly, our umami taste receptors are crippled compared to those of rodents. Mice can taste all 20 naturally-occurring amino acids. (Mice in which the umami receptor has been deleted and replaced with the human receptor taste only glutamate.)
 
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A huge amount of the discussion of bokeh on the web concerns photos where the subject is totally isolated against a blurred background. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if that's your thing, just get an 85/1.4, or a 300/2.8 and a monopod, and go take pictures.

More interesting to me is what happens with lenses of moderate FL (say, 28-60mm) at moderate apertures (2.8-5.6). This sort of bokeh is a crucial visual element in many of the most important pictures in the history of photography. Examples abound.

Like Juan V., I want to see structure in foreground or background rendered neutrally, as a soft version of the in-focus image with well-rounded (near-gaussian) blur to the edges. This means that single lines (say, power lines) are rendered as single (albeit defocused) lines, and that point sources of light are rendered as discs, without undue brightening at the edges. In color, chromatic aberration on OOF structures should also be minimal.

I like visual neutrality. For my own purposes, I'm not particularly interested in "expressive" bokeh.
 
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