Is bokeh falling out of favor?

[Godfrey]

I’ve been shooting since around 1972. Fast lenses of the 1960s and 1970s were made to take pictures in low light. This is when maximum film speeds were no higher than ASA/ISO 400. When shooting at or near wide-open with normal to long FL lenses it was just accepted that your background would be blurred, but in my world not many took notice of OOF character. It was simply about the in-focus subject(s).

The first time I heard the word "bokeh" was around 25-years ago when digital began taking dominance over film. It wasn't until then that I paid any attention to OOF renderings at all. In the digital world - even 25-years ago - we could push ASA/ISO speeds to 10,000 or more. Then photographers started shooting fast lenses wide-open in natural bright light – even using neutral density filters to get that bokeh experience. This likely - unbeknownst to me - was going on with film as early as the 1980s when Kodak produced ASA/ISO 3200 film.

Today I believe it's still “a thing” to the point of the character of out of focus rendering is as important – if not more important – than the in-focus character of a lens. So, people still do obsess over the character of their bokeh.

Hmm. I was shooting with adjustable cameras starting about 1968 when I joined the Photo Staff at my high school. I would regularly rate Tri-X at ISO 1200 to 1600 in Acufine developer to handle dances and indoor sports events. There was also Kodak 2475 Recording Film that had a base ASA of 1000: we regularly pushed it to 3200 or 6400. (And, wow, was it grainy!) But you really could do concert photos in 'available darkness' with it.

I think the rise of fascination with bokeh, aka 'shallow depth of field', in the digital world happened when the early affordable digital cameras all had tiny sensors that meant it was hard to get the kind of shallow DoF that even 35mm film had at its disposal, never mind medium and large format film. Some photo sites started making a big thing of it, and it became something of a statement to achieve razor thin DoF ... and then people started to notice that not all lenses produced blur that was pleasing. An article or three happened with the newly-discovered-in-the-West Japanese word, and the rest is history. ... 🙂

G
—
No matter where you go, there you are.

 

[rogxwhit]

Do you find yourself actively stopping down more to keep the background from taking over, or do you just let it happen and focus on framing and subject instead?

I would tend to stop down less, whilst concentrating on everything as one ought to, because the picture as a whole is the aim, not a particular aspect of it. Its hard to imagine the background 'taking over'! Let's get on with the (sensitive & meaningful) job!

 

[Bill Blackwell]

Hmm. I was shooting with adjustable cameras starting about 1968 when I joined the Photo Staff at my high school. I would regularly rate Tri-X at ISO 1200 to 1600 in Acufine developer to handle dances and indoor sports events. There was also Kodak 2475 Recording Film that had a base ASA of 1000: we regularly pushed it to 3200 or 6400. (And, wow, was it grainy!) But you really could do concert photos in 'available darkness' with it. ...

I can only report my own experience. While I know - but didn't mention in my post - certain Kodak films (including Tri-X) could be pushed as you point out, I didn't know anyone who actually did it for serious use due to the excessive grain it produced (as you point out).

 

[RoboRepublic]

I for one tire of the War on Ears.

 

[Mute-on]

My style of photography has never made much use of shallow depth of focus “bokeh”, so for me the obsession in some internet circles with a lens’s OOF rendering is a non-starter. I tend to favour lack of distortion, colour rendering and so-called micro contrast as desirable characteristics.

However, I’ll be sure to try my new Voigtlander 35 Ultron wide open to see what its “busy and distracting” bokeh looks like. Then I’ll probably stop down to 4-5.6 for my usual approach.

 

[Godfrey]

I can only report my own experience. While I know - but didn't mention in my post - certain Kodak films (including Tri-X) could be pushed as you point out, I didn't know anyone who actually did it for serious use due to the excessive grain it produced (as you point out).

Tri-X @ ISO 1200 in Acufine, Plus-X @ ISO 320 in Acufine, and Tri-X @ 1600 in Diafine is not excessively grainy. My reference was to 2475 Recording film, which had golfball sized grain when pushed to ISO 6400. 😉

G

 

[boojum]

For me bokeh is a tool. When one wants focus of interest in some small part of the image add the bokeh by opening that lens up all the way. If you want a lot included as focus of interest stop the lens down. It's just another tool.

 

[Godfrey]

For me bokeh is a tool. When one wants focus of interest in some small part of the image add the bokeh by opening that lens up all the way. If you want a lot included as focus of interest stop the lens down. It's just another tool.

I think you meant "blur" rather than "bokeh", because bokeh isn't "blur" it's "the quality of the blur". Of course, the term has been abused so severely in recent years it almost doesn't mean anything specific at all any more. 🤷‍♂️

G

 

[Oren Grad]

I think you meant "blur" rather than "bokeh", because bokeh isn't "blur" it's "the quality of the blur".

That is not correct. "Boke" (ボケ) literally is blur or fuzz, while "boke-aji" (ボケ味, lit. "blur flavor") is the character of the blur. But really, boojum's reference to it as a tool would be fine under either interpretation.

 

[splitimageview]

That is not correct. "Boke" (ボケ) literally is blur or fuzz, while "boke-aji" (ボケ味, lit. "blur flavor") is the character of the blur.

So what’s the correct pronunciation? 🙂

 

[Oren Grad]

So what’s the correct pronunciation? 🙂

Bo-keh, as Mike Johnston rendered it. 🙂

 

[Coldkennels]

I wonder sometimes if the ever-increasing speed of autofocus (but not necessarily accuracy...) has made things worse.

I have a friend who shoots with Sony mirrorless bodies. He's always showing off his newest, fastest lenses - and he almost never uses the aperture blades. All wide open, all the time - and always reliant on auto focus.

It's mostly fine when he's using wide angle lenses and just photographing one person, but god, the look gets tired quickly. He refuses to change, though.

 

[panatomic]

“bo” as in borscht, “ke” as in Kepler.

 

[ellisson]

Much photography work - digital and film after scanning, is dependent on post-processing. Post-processing includes creating or enhancing out of focus areas and blur. While it usually exists where I anticipate, I can increase or alter the character of the background blurring or "bokeh" (or your preferred term) in Lightroom (LR) using the bokeh/blur tools. The character of bokeh tool is a useful submenu in this section . Combined with cropping, adjusting exposure, contrast, pulling out shadow areas etc, etc, etc., adjusting bokeh in post is another method to create and/or enhance existing bokeh and the overall rendering.

 

[CMur12]

Even in portraiture, I have rarely used maximum aperture unless I was forced to by low light. I could get desirable isolation of subject without resorting to that. With 85mm, 100mm, and 135mm lenses, f/4.0 was usually just right. With a 135mm lens, even f/5.6 could work.

I have never felt that owning a fast lens required me to shoot at maximum aperture. Nor do I like paper-thin DOF.

- Murray

 

[Godfrey]

That is not correct. "Boke" (ボケ) literally is blur or fuzz, while "boke-aji" (ボケ味, lit. "blur flavor") is the character of the blur. But really, boojum's reference to it as a tool would be fine under either interpretation.

Thank you for the correction!
And so it is obvious that I too have been caught in all the bazillion bits of mis-information circulated as truth. Sigh.
I'll just keep making my photographs the way I do... 😀

G

 

[p.giannakis]

Pick up any pre-internet photography magazine and check the lens reviews. You won't find any bokeh test, bokeh quality marker, bokeh comparison or even the word "bokeh".

You will find some brief mention about out of focus blur in the context of aberrations or whether a lens was over/under corrected etc..

Bokeh was elevated to a holy grail status in the age of the internet by connoisseur influencers. Some of the internet sensesional bokeh lenses (i.e. Helios, or trioplan ) I find them to be mediocre lenses.

Maybe people got sick of the bokeh bubble. I too bought some shares of it but sold them off - now my most used lenses are very low on the "excellent bokeh" list.

Newcomers to this hobby should be more interested in how you compose a picture, how you meter the scene, how you use the light, how you choose your subject, how you develop it or scan it right .. etc..

 

[santino]

I think it is (was?) a digital thing. Once full frame became affordable everybody wanted that nice out of focus. It was not limited to still photography, tv productions jumped on the band wagon too. In the 90s everything on TV was in focus so once it was possible, „bokeh“ kicked in.

 

[Leon C]

I can only speak about my own thoughts about it and it never was in 'favor' with me, it's just a characteristic of any given lens and one chooses a lens for a specific image or idea to control how someone wants it to look, like focal length or quality with certain films etc....And or even convenience, small zoom for walkabouts...blah blah....

As Pan touches on, it is a vehicle for internet attention seekers as personally I've never been influenced by any YT or Social Media 'Photographer' and find most, boring and even wrong in their clickbaiting titles but that's another thread.

As I mentioned in the linked thread by the OP:

I was around before the word was banded around like they'd invented the wheel, it makes me gag everytime I hear it, as it sounds like someone can't say the act involving several people properly.....

These days it's just a vehicle for some YT'ers to make themselves sound like they know something, when most of it is Copy/Paste nonsense they read on a Forum.....Ahem!

🤪 😆

Also to add IMHO the recentish obsession with fast lenses assists the mundane trend and there's an element of subjectivity to it all, some shots that people think are dreamy and ooooh! I don't personally like to look at, there's no one size fits all, but that's the beauty of Photography it is what it is whatever you want it to be.

 

[splitimageview]

Bo-keh, as Mike Johnston rendered it. 🙂

Hard to believe it's been 20 years since he published the lens bokeh ratings (available for download here for those interested.)