Learning bokeh

A couple of great examples here where the bokah becomes part of the composition (chap in train station is killer, for instance).

For the most part, it is done poorly, and I suggest, as a disservice to the fine optical designers at Zeiss and Leica, etc. I think what really bothers me is how much money people will dump to buy ridiculously expensive precision lenses when they could just as easily stick a LensBaby on the front of some **** lens, or smear vaseline around a UV filter, fix a close-up diopter off kilter, or any other such handy contrivances.

Adding to that is that a rangefinder is one of the most unsuitable instruments for attempting well-considered OOF compositions.

Also, many examples I have seen (even again the chap in the train station) have such good composition and clear attraction points that throwing the background out of focus is hardly necessary. In many cases, the background is not competing at all, or is acting as a delightful and interesting setting that throwing it out of focus is like beating you over the head to look at one and only one thing. If you look at HCB's photographs (or anyone else doing 'street'), or anyone doing 'environmental' portraiture, there are many stories in one photograph, not just one. They survive because they are rich and withstand repeated viewings, wherein you discover little side-stories on successive viewings.

There is a case to be made where the background has no story whatsoever, or worse, where there are trashcans and garbage in the scene, where the shot should have been taken with white seamless in a studio, but rather than throw it out of focus, the adept photographer would have twirled the subject around or taken it from another angle.

So even most portraits can withstand in-focus backgrounds, when arranged with a 'photographers eye'. Portraits don't generally need help.

Some of this is an attempted throwback to pictorialism and to painting, and an attempt to get that 'comfy' feel. However, selective focus was never used in painting, because such a concept could only be introduced by lenses. Most landscape 'pictorial' photographs (which I love and make) do not employ selective focus either -- they are often soft but have infinite depth of field.

Many early photographic portraits have very limited depth of field, but the lenses were generally awful.

It's funny, but rangefinders are ideal instruments for normal to wide lenses (and we have truly enviable wide-angle choices), steadiness at slow shutter speeds, and this makes them best suited to rich, infinite depth of field photographs, yet many seem to go all out to make them perform like long-lens SLR's or view cameras. Go figure.

And for those that want just non-representational modern art, precision photographic equipment, expensive ones at that, seems complete overkill.

A bit of a rant, I know, but I'll just end with a somewhat facetious comment for the bokah diehards: Instead of using your lens 'wide-open', dismount it altogether!
 
As Roger said I think that the bokeh tail wagging the photographic dog is a recipe for dull and insipid photographs - however I do notice and like to explore playing with bokeh in my photography. I have only ever conceived of it as part of the overall photo itself, that is an enhancement to the overall shot of which the subject mater is (usually) in sharp focus.

I've never 'got' the Holga fad, but a lot of people are having fun with them so more power to them :)....I never 'got' HDR either but I notice that most of the photographs in the BBC landscape photography competition are (or appear to be ) HDR shots.

In may ways that is one of the great things about photography. For many years, 'intellectuals' have debated this, that and the other, including whether photography truly is 'art' in the way that say, painting or sculpture is. Meanwhile, most of us photographers have scratched our chins (or beards) and said 'See ya later chaps, I'm off out to have fun and take some photos!'

I should add that I love this shot.....

ulrikft said:
4012180521_3be80a8f37_b.jpg
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David William White said:
A couple of great examples here where the bokah becomes part of the composition (chap in train station is killer, for instance).

For the most part, it is done poorly, and I suggest, as a disservice to the fine optical designers at Zeiss and Leica, etc. I think what really bothers me is how much money people will dump to buy ridiculously expensive precision lenses when they could just as easily stick a LensBaby on the front of some **** lens, or smear vaseline around a UV filter, fix a close-up diopter off kilter, or any other such handy contrivances.

Adding to that is that a rangefinder is one of the most unsuitable instruments for attempting well-considered OOF compositions.

Also, many examples I have seen (even again the chap in the train station) have such good composition and clear attraction points that throwing the background out of focus is hardly necessary. In many cases, the background is not competing at all, or is acting as a delightful and interesting setting that throwing it out of focus is like beating you over the head to look at one and only one thing. If you look at HCB's photographs (or anyone else doing 'street'), or anyone doing 'environmental' portraiture, there are many stories in one photograph, not just one. They survive because they are rich and withstand repeated viewings, wherein you discover little side-stories on successive viewings.

There is a case to be made where the background has no story whatsoever, or worse, where there are trashcans and garbage in the scene, where the shot should have been taken with white seamless in a studio, but rather than throw it out of focus, the adept photographer would have twirled the subject around or taken it from another angle.

So even most portraits can withstand in-focus backgrounds, when arranged with a 'photographers eye'. Portraits don't generally need help.

Some of this is an attempted throwback to pictorialism and to painting, and an attempt to get that 'comfy' feel. However, selective focus was never used in painting, because such a concept could only be introduced by lenses. Most landscape 'pictorial' photographs (which I love and make) do not employ selective focus either -- they are often soft but have infinite depth of field.

Many early photographic portraits have very limited depth of field, but the lenses were generally awful.

It's funny, but rangefinders are ideal instruments for normal to wide lenses (and we have truly enviable wide-angle choices), steadiness at slow shutter speeds, and this makes them best suited to rich, infinite depth of field photographs, yet many seem to go all out to make them perform like long-lens SLR's or view cameras. Go figure.

And for those that want just non-representational modern art, precision photographic equipment, expensive ones at that, seems complete overkill.

A bit of a rant, I know, but I'll just end with a somewhat facetious comment for the bokah diehards: Instead of using your lens 'wide-open', dismount it altogether!
Click to expand...

I agree with lots of this, I just think that there is a time for rich "everything" pictures, a time for surralistic and abstract bokeh-pictures (i have lot of favourites in this bunch) and a time for controlled depth of field to focus the attention towards parts of the image. All three are different tools to communicate different things. To me, the most important part of a picture, if I'm not hired to do a job, is how I feel when I look at it. I have to like the feel. Sometimes i like "most of the shot in focus", sometimes I like "tripod, 21mm @ f/11"-focus, other times, I love what the 58 1.2 can do wide open on my d700. Sometimes the light sets the limit.

I have to admit that most of my street shooting is either 24 or 35mm at f/8 or 50, 58 or 85 at 1.2-2.8. I don't think I've used my 58 1.2 above 1.8 more than like .. three times.. :)
 
I first noticed bad bokeh some years ago, in a picture I took of a bush. The OOF branches in the background were doubled. I didn't like that, but we didn't have a word for it back then. The lens was the 55mm Micro-Nikkor f/3.5. For the most part I am not troubled by bokeh, since I tend to stop down as much as I can. I compose pictures in depth, and in most cases like everything to be sharp.

But when bad bokeh strikes, I find it distracting. I feel it ruins the picture. So yes, I do care.
 
I like a creamy overall soft bokeh / not swirly
and YES its a matter of Taste...This shot of my Pug Lulubelle says it all /OM1 zuiko 50 1.4
LOVED your pix :SILVA LINING
3744179408_c96242f3c6_b.jpg
 
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I like to combine bokeh with other off-axis artifacts of severely uncorrected optics, in this example a 150mm binocular lens cell (taken from a 7x50 binocular) and fitted to my 4"X5" Speed Graphic. Stopped down to 20mm aperture (around F/7.5 at infinity, closer to F/8 in this image).

Grade 2 preflashed paper negative.

Mail boxes in Madrid, NM, where my grandson and I were on a photo-expedition 2 days ago.

~Joe


 
I make a distinction between selective focus and bokeh.

I use selective focus regularly to draw attention to something in the photograph.



The lens itself may offer a pleasing out-of-focus rendition. Like zoom lenses, I find that people often tend to use them all the way out or all the way in. Max bokeh or none at all. There is something in-between, folks!

It's all down to creative choices. I appreciate photographs that are sharp throughout and I also like those with distracting elements smoothed away from conscious attention. Fortunately, no one has to choose only one or the other.
 
Dave Wilkinson said:
Originally Posted by Sparrow

Try explaining bokeh to a layman ...
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go on then! - we are 'all ears'! ;)
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While I don’t pretend to understand it I’ve had an interest in the Japanese aesthetic for many years, I have kept bonsai, collected stones (Suiseki) and woodcuts for years. The Japanese aesthetic is ancient and is not simply visual like our modern one, it also involves belief, religion and life in a way our art did back in the renaissance but much more rooted in everyday life.

However; as I understand it was only in the 19th century that the first attempts were made to codify Japanese art and the odd thing is I don’t recall any mention in of bokeh in anything I’ve read about their art or any other aspect of their aesthetic, bokeh seems exclusively photographic and the only attempt to define it is by photographers to other photographers not something for the plebs bother with.

So, as I cannot define it I cannot learn it or teach it,
 
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bmattock said:
I make a distinction between selective focus and bokeh.

I use selective focus regularly to draw attention to something in the photograph.



The lens itself may offer a pleasing out-of-focus rendition. Like zoom lenses, I find that people often tend to use them all the way out or all the way in. Max bokeh or none at all. There is something in-between, folks!

It's all down to creative choices. I appreciate photographs that are sharp throughout and I also like those with distracting elements smoothed away from conscious attention. Fortunately, no one has to choose only one or the other.
Click to expand...

Ya’see that conveys depth, pictorial recession, and without making my eyes bleed
 
I use in focus vs oof to draw attention to the main point of interest in the picture. I can't see why bokeh necessarily is such a bad thing. My eyes can't, in real life, focus on everything I see front to back all at the same time, why should pictures captured on film or chip have to?
 
I think that it is not coincidental that bokeh has become popular in the last 2 decades. I think that it's a reaction, in part, to the sort of pictures produced by compact digitals which often employ flash and small apertures. The ubiquity of such images makes us crave something less documentarian.
 
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