The Great Bokeh Controversy: Snare or Delusion?

Bokeh is a Japanese word that refers to the subjective visual impression of the out of focus areas of an image. Just because bokeh isn't objectively measurable doesn't mean it's BS, but there's certainly been a lot of BS written about it. What imaging characteristics contribute to beautiful bokeh? What kind of lenses that are most likely to be "bokeh monsters?"? Which vintage and contemporary lenses should bokeh fanatics go for? Just ask me and I'll give you my arrogant but educated opinions-:)
 
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Leica MP/Summicron 50mm f/2 v4/TMY400-2/IlfordMGFB

Erik.

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Aster, July 4, 2020

Aster, July 4, 2020

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I shot this impromptu portrait of my granddaughter Aster, age 4, at a small family cookout on the 4th of July before her mom had the chance to clean the schmutz off her face, which I think adds to the charm. Camera: Sigma fp with 45mm f/2.8 Sigma DG DN lens. Handheld exposure: 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400. I like the classic rendition of this lens very much and it has beautiful bokeh as well.
 
Jason Schneider said:
I shot this impromptu portrait of my granddaughter Aster, age 4, at a small family cookout on the 4th of July before her mom had the chance to clean the schmutz off her face, which I think adds to the charm. Camera: Sigma fp with 45mm f/2.8 Sigma DG DN lens. Handheld exposure: 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400. I like the classic rendition of this lens very much and it has beautiful bokeh as well.
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Those are the photos that dads love and moms don't.
 
Jason Schneider said:
I shot this impromptu portrait of my granddaughter Aster, age 4, at a small family cookout on the 4th of July before her mom had the chance to clean the schmutz off her face, which I think adds to the charm. Camera: Sigma fp with 45mm f/2.8 Sigma DG DN lens. Handheld exposure: 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400. I like the classic rendition of this lens very much and it has beautiful bokeh as well.
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Nice bokeh in an even sweeter image.
 
I thought I'd post up something; always fun to join in.

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Voigtlander 90mm f3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM lens
Sony A7II

All the best,
Mike
 
Symmetrical lenses and bokeh

Symmetrical lenses and bokeh

Rob-F said:
I think fairly symmetrical double gauss lenses like the Summicrons and Planars are candidates for nice smooth bokeh. And I believe Tessar and Elmar types are as well. More recent highly corrected types like asphericals seem more at risk for disturbing bokeh. I feel that my 50mm collapsible Summicron and 35mm f/2.8 Summaron are lenses with good bokeh. Oh, and my old chrome 90mm Elmarit.
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In general I agree with your observations about fairly symmetrical double Gauss designs and Tessar type lenses having smooth bokeh, but there are numerous exceptions. One of my favorite lenses for beautiful bokeh and classic rendition is the old (coated or uncoated) 50mm f/1.5 Zeiss Sonnar for Contax rangefinder cameras, an advanced, unsymmetrical modified triplet design. And many of the current Leica ASPH. lenses have aspheric elements and surfaces yet manage to provide beautiful rendition along with smooth natural bokeh. All generalizations are misleading, including this one-:)
 
Nice shot Jason. I've read about that less and find it interesting. Seems Sigma was trying to design something more "Classic" than perfect.

I like some here didn't get bokeh for a long time. Some of this may stem from years as a 4x5 still life shooter where we worked hard to get everything sharp. Did it seem like a cult? I don't know, but the fans sure had their own weird adjectives. Bubble bokeh, caffeinated bokeh, sloppy drunk bokeh. I didn't get it.

That changed for me a few years back after being influenced by somebody who always shot his Hasselblad with an 80 WO. I started working this way with an Autocord. The longer lens added to the affect compared to previously shooting mostly a 35mm on 35mm film.

Came across an interview with Sandy Phimester and thought his bokeh stood out.
https://www.35mmc.com/29/06/2020/its-not-all-serendipity-an-interview-with-sandy-phimester/
 
I remember a late friend of mine who was into large format film photography and his favourite lens of all time was the Goerz Golden Dagor....and I thought that with a name like that then it must be good.
 
xayraa33 said:
I remember a late friend of mine who was into large format film photography and his favourite lens of all time was the Goerz Golden Dagor....and I thought that with a name like that then it must be good.
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I love Dagors on view cameras, but when I tried a couple on Graflex cameras I found out I hate the boke.
 
The Japanese do not use the Latin alphabet, used in English.

Their feudal society was rudely dragged into modern times by the attack by the USA. The flood of modernism meant the Japanese had choices and they chose the French for photography.

I suspect 'boke', 'bokeh' are actually bouquet, from the French, a usage that may have fallen out of fashion. Monsieur Stern of bizarre lens fame, did not confirm this.
 
Patrick M P Donnelly said:
The Japanese do not use the Latin alphabet, used in English.
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The Japanese language uses four alphabets and one of them, Romaji, is Latin characters.

Patrick M P Donnelly said:
Their feudal society was rudely dragged into modern times by the attack by the USA.
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Notwithstanding the US-imposed political and economic restructuring post-WWII, modernization of Japan began in the Meiji era, starting in the 1860s. Imperial Japan, like the other forms of fascism, was itself a product of the modern era.
 
It's always interesting to watch styles (or fads) come and go in photography. When I was in art school, studying photography in the early seventies, most of my instructors were RIT graduates, and all were firm believers in the High Modernist f/64 religion. It was a moral failing to let your background go out of focus, the argument being that you weren't "taking responsibility" for all the content in the frame. I confess that I internalized that nonsense, but did finally get over it. And I am currently in love with my new 55mm f/1.2 Nikkor, shot wide open for portraiture; about as great a crime as possible, and surely I will burn in hell for it. Although I still cringe when I see shots of nothing but out-of-focus Christmas lights. And the phrase "bokeh balls" just sounds like a very unpleasant disease...
 
Patrick M P Donnelly said:
Their feudal society was rudely dragged into modern times by the attack by the USA. The flood of modernism meant the Japanese had choices and they chose the French for photography.
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I don't think it's completely fair to say the USA "dragged" Japan into modern times. The Tokugawa period was relatively peaceful, but it also encompassed a period of near continuous decline - things were already uneasy when Commodore Perry showed up, and as many of those "in the know" in Japan suspected, they weren't going to be able to maintain their closed island policy, or their feudal system for much longer. Perry's arrival though shocking, just drove home what many in Japan already knew. The Japanese knew more about the outside world than popular history lets on, they were kept pretty well informed of developments in the west through Dutch traders, and shipwrecked sailors. Indeed, when Ranald MacDonald snuck into Japan he was put to work helping nobles and scholars with English pronunciation - they were already well informed so far as vocabulary and grammar were concerned!

In any event, as pointed out already, boke' has nothing to do with bouquet etymologically.

As to the topic at hand, I think Boke' is far more noticeable to the layman than things like resolution. Almost nobody looking at a framed photo hanging on a wall, or reprinted in a book, is going to notice things like how sharp the corners of the photo are. That kind of stuff is basically only for photographers to care about. They will however usually notice things like grain, tonality, and "boke" (if the boke is distracting enough)! Resolving lines on test cards only means anything to people who need to compare what lens resolves what number of lines on a test card, whereas something like boke, though subjective, requires no expertise. You know bad boke when you see it!
 
Since well before this out of focus fad I have always had more problems getting enough in acceptable focus front to back. I never worried about what the fuzzy areas looked like. A tripod was my friend with slow film and small apertures. Now I fool around with 4x5 and found lenses, usually shooting photo paper at ISO-6 at f64 and the lens set at infinity. That way I don’t need a fractional speed shutter or focusing.
 
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