When good Bokeh goes bad: an observation.

[tonal1]

Being a big fan of Bokeh machines such as the v4 35 Summicron, and having paid a lot of attention to the Bo-keh phenominon for the last six or seven years, I have an observation: I have noticed that in images made from lenses thought to have, not terrible, but "normal," or "neutral bokeh," such as the ubiquitous Nikkor 50's, that these lenses produce a more accessible, or usefull, OOF area. What I mean by that is that, wanting for DOF, the out-of-focus areas are more integrated into the image as usefull information, that they are more recognizable, as opposed to being smoothed out abstractions detached from the critical plane of focus. Thinking that lens designers are probably quite aware of overall lens charactoristics, I really wonder if many lenses are designed not to have what we refer to as "good bokeh," but rather are designed in favor of a more neutral rendering.

 

[MikeL]

First post on bokeh. Brave, brave soul....🙂

 

[ferider]

Welcome Tonal. Enjoy the ride ...

(sitting back, getting pop-corn).

 

[tonal1]

Well, there seems to be a crowd forming.... should I be concerned??

 

[xayraa33]

just two words, creamy bokeh.
a lens has this or not.

 

[erikhaugsby]

Bokeh is a touchy subject around here, to say the least.

 

[rogue_designer]

I suppose "good bo-keh" does come down to a matter of taste.

For many, neutral bokeh would be considered good, whereas I tend to like a little more texture in mine - provided it doesn't overly detract from the primary subject.

I wonder if you're right - especially with more modern lenses, if rather than polarize their users - the designers have gone for the most boring renderings possible of the out-of focus areas.

I don't personally know what in an optical design controls this rendering - it may be that a by-product of computerized design is an elimination of the imperfections of human ray tracing which created the looks?

Welcome to the RFF.

 

[ferider]

Well, there seems to be a crowd forming.... should I be concerned??

Naah, this is a friendly crowd. I actually agree with what you write,
except for the v4 being a "Bokeh machine" 🙂 And don't know which Nikkors
you mean, my 50/1.4 (see my avatar) has very pretty bokeh 🙂

 

[hans voralberg]

I bet my hat this will turn into something 4-5 pages long dissecting bokeh, again

 

[Hacker]

I must have missed the previous discussions, being new to RF and all. Count me in 🙂.

 

[principe azul]

My guess, from reading and observation, is that the double lines sometimes apparent in bokeh sometimes help in the recognition of out-of-focus objects. The downside is that highlights can be distracting.

Two sometimes. See, I'm hedging my bets here. 😎

I've shot with four different Nikkor 50s, as well as with the Nikkor 35/1.4, which Mike Johnston said wasn't bad for bokeh but could jar in certain circumstances.

Ken Rockwell has a take on bokeh here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/bokeh.htm. What hopefully won't be too contentious are the three illustrations of highlights. I'd like my Nikkor shots with o-o-f highlights in the background (e.g., subject in focus wide open against bright lights of bar in the background) to have looked like no.3, but they looked like no.1 - and I never took the lovely 105/2.5 out at night... No worries, and to me the tendency to no.1 is better than stopping down and getting perfectly lit hexagons in the background. I think the Nikkor 50s tended towards 'bad bokeh' but depending on the background and distances involved could start to look a bit creamy - or at least more blended.

I've seen many pictures taken with v4 crons and have seen doubled lines in one or two of them. All depends, I guess, though some lenses will be more to taste more of the time.

Actually, tonal1, the twig picture on Ken Rockwell's site illustrates your point perfectly - though I think here that it's not any better or worse than nothing but creamy blur, e.g., many bird shots might have perfect bokeh, but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. 🙄

 

[ferider]

You are right and it does that (and v3 does an equally good job
at higher flare resistance, IMO).

But others define good bokeh via absence of double lines in the background,
large and round OOF circles even in the corners (absence of come, etc).
The v4 is not so good at that.

Therefore, bokeh is in the eye of the beholder 🙂

Cheers,

Roland.

 

[principe azul]

v4 35 Summicron...

But maybe the real weight of it's reputation comes not so much from the kind of wide open, up close, kind of shot that most illustrates bokeh, but from the way it delineates a mid distance subject from it's background, at middle apertures, which I suppose still qualifies as an example of it's bokeh charactoristics.

Always forget those other apertures... 😱

I remember a photo of some trucks in a thread over at pnet that was taken with your lens, maybe 4 or 5.6, and I was impressed with the way the detail gradually dissolved.

 

[NickTrop]

Subjective, way subjective.

I love the swirls of the Iskra and old folders... others call this "bad bokeh". Jupiter 9 with 15 blade aperture produces perfectly circular highlights. Love this lens, but that aspect is no biggie over the pentagonal bokeh of 5 aperture blades. The reason to own a Summar is for its "weird" abstract/cartoony bokey. I love this look in some subjects, others hate this lens for it.

If you're looking to throw the background out of focus, any lens will do. The only "bad" bokeh to me is "double vision" bokeh and I don't own any lenses that produce this. I think you almost have to go out of your way to find it.

 

[tonal1]

There seems to be multiple visual elements that contribute to an individuals impression of bokeh, and I wonder how connected in cause they are. For intance, is there a direct relationship to how a lens renders the background, and how visually removed the background is from the subject. The sonnar 50's(Mine was a Canon 50/1.5)have bokeh that I find a swirling distraction, but they pull the subject out of the background in similar fashion as do lenses with a creamier oof area. In my mind bokeh is not simply the oof rendition, but it is that rendition in relation to the plane of critical focus.

And now I'm going to think about something else for a while, something non bokeh related.

 

[peterm1]

I really wonder if many lenses are designed not to have what we refer to as "good bokeh," but rather are designed in favor of a more neutral rendering.

I think that is true in a sense, but is'nt it a factor of modern lenses having a higher order of correction for abberations (the same abberations such as spherical abberation which in older lenses contributes to nice bokeh?) So yes they are designed in favor of a more neutral rendering but I suppose what I am saying is that this may not be deliberate - just a side effect of "better" lens correction. I am not certain about this but put it forward sorta in support of what toanl is suggesting.

I think this view is supported somewhat by some older photos I have seen which have what old time photographers used to call "plasticity" (About as meaningful a word as bokeh if you ask me!) In these photos the out of focus areas had nice bokeh but in addition, the in-focus subject had the characteristic of being both sharp and slightly blurred as well. This was due to uncorrected abberations and was much sought after in lenses as opposed to the knife edge sharpness that we seem to favor in modern lenses.