Have you ever heard the turm "Bokeh" ?.

[blackteg]

If not then have a read of this.

(this is taken from the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Bokeh (from the Japanese boke ぼけ, "blur") is a term used in photography to describe the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image projected by a camera lens. For example, in some images the background may be deliberately caused to be out-of-focus to reduce distractions and to emphasize the primary subject.

Some lenses are thought to produce more pleasing out-of-focus areas that enhance the overall quality of the image. Bokeh is a quite subjective quality that is difficult to quantify and is sometimes debated.

The characteristics of bokeh may be quantified by examining the image's circle of confusion. In out-of-focus areas, each point of light becomes a disc. In images taken by some lenses, that disc is uniformly illuminated; for others it is brighter near the edge; and for others it is brighter near the center. Some lenses show one kind of disc for out-of-focus points closer to the camera, and a different kind for points farther from the camera. Traditionally speaking, an out-of-focus point of light with a more illuminated center and a dimmer outer edge is considered to be more desirable than an evenly illuminated disc or one with brighter edges than center. A circle of confusion with darker edges has a less defined shape which allows it to blend with the surrounding image. A hard edge would tend to bring the eye away from the in-focus subject and toward the out-of-focus element.

The shape of the aperture is known to have a great influence on bokeh. Mirror lenses produce a "doughnut" bokeh that is generally considered unpleasant. Some lenses will show a many-sided shape rather than a circle, depending on the blades in their diaphragm. Generally lenses with more blades in the diaphragm tend to produce more "round" bokeh. It is important to keep in mind that this only comes into effect when the lens is stopped down to something other than its maximum aperture. When the lens is set to its maximum aperture, the aperture blades do not have any influence on the shape of the circle of confusion since they are retracted away behind the lens opening.

The other characteristics of a lens that cause it to produce pleasing bokeh are complicated. Some lens designs are known to produce a certain kind of bokeh. But most photographers do not fully understand how the lens design influences bokeh; they merely note whether a lens produces results that please them.

Bokeh is especially important for large-aperture lenses, macro lenses and long telephoto lenses becauses they're typically used with a narrow depth of field.

Bokeh is also important for "portrait lenses" (typically medium telephoto — 85–150 mm on 35-mm format) because the photographer would typically select a shallow depth of field (wide aperture) to have an out of focus background, to make the subject stand out.

Here is some of my shots for example.

This is a shot with a bad bokeh


As seen in the shot the background has the small circles as discribed in the write-up.Which does'nt look nice

Here's some good Bokeh shots.

[TommyYooCanCook]

Fotopic direct linking errors, blackteg...

[PurelySwift]

Thanks for posting that explaination Alan. I'd been reading a lot of lense reviews and curious about that term but hadn't looked it up.

[TommyYooCanCook]

Alan, I made changes to your first post to make the images work - Fotopic.net apparently does not allow hotlinking of their pictures: http://fotopic.net/help/directlinking.php

[Isshinharu]

Nice explanation!

[the_erickee]

Originally Posted by Isshinharu

Nice explanation!

[fspdeejay]

Read about it before... That's why I recently bought my EF 85mm f/1.8... Excellent silky smooth bokeh for outdoor portraits.

[blingtegra]

high apertures like 1.8 can really give you a nice bokeh.
also, to save money from buying expensive lenses like 1.8 or 2.8, you can always use photoshop to select the background and blur it -more control this way too.

[fspdeejay]

Originally Posted by blingtegra

high apertures like 1.8 can really give you a nice bokeh.
also, to save money from buying expensive lenses like 1.8 or 2.8, you can always use photoshop to select the background and blur it -more control this way too.

Actually, it's more the lens construction and number of blades in the apeture that affect bokeh. Check out this example. Large apertures may give you good background blur, but they won't necessarily give you good bokeh. Also, you can simulate shallow DOF in Photoshop, but it's much easier to have it already there straight from the camera. You have control over how much blur you want by varying the aperture size. I use apeture priority alot when I shoot - if not manual.

[PurelySwift]

yeah, trying to cut around a person that has hair blowing all over the place in photoshop is a waste of my time. No way I could get that good of background blur without the lense... when I buy it...

[theDude™]

I totally agree

[the_erickee]

Originally Posted by PurelySwift

yeah, trying to cut around a person that has hair blowing all over the place in photoshop is a waste of my time. No way I could get that good of background blur without the lense... when I buy it...

when i was on the journalism staff for the school newspaper in high school, we used the extract tool to get all the strands of hair and it looked great.

[ssm6]

so now that i know what it means how do i pronounce it? Good read though thanks!

[Dan GSR]

generally lenses with more apeture blades have more pleasing bokeh

[BigB]

IMO, the word bokeh is so overused nowadays.

And please don't use PS to blur the background. Most of the time it looks very unnatural.