Bokeh vs shallow Depth of Field

[MarkChap]

Well for me, if your image is sharp from front to back, it has NO bokeh, if through the use of DoF you have an out of focus area in your image you then HAVE bokeh, whether it is pleasing to a viewer or not then becomes subjective.

Look at the bokeh produced by a mirror lens, lots of little doughnuts representing the out of focus area achieved by the use of DoF, it is still bokeh but is it pleasing ??

[TOM]

well i disagree arthur, but no harm done. i am not sure where you get your definition of 'bokeh' from arthur, as it is not really a photographic term in the traditional sense. i guess that means that nothing is set in stone, and we will continue to share different views that will not affect our photography. we'll have to agree to disagree as they say.

[arthurking83]

....

Look at the bokeh produced by a mirror lens, lots of little doughnuts representing the out of focus area achieved by the use of DoF, it is still bokeh but is it pleasing ??

I'm not saying nuffin!


as for the definition of bokeh, it's in CypherOz's links in one of his posts to dictionaries, wiki, idigitalphoto.com(whatever that is??), etc.
Luminous landscape, et al.. all have the same description.

The Japanese apparently refer to the quality of the out-of-focus image as "boke". What is boke, and why are lenses different from one another?

... taken straight from the first paragraph in Tonys second LL bokeh link.

[enduro]

I'll go with: "that bokeh is understandably the beauty of the light in the OOF area". Few of us, if any have an understanding of the Japanese word boke enough to realise it's true meaning in relation to refracted light.

Having creamy or mesmerizing OOF regions is not enough, beautiful bokeh must actually add to the image composition. Bokeh is essentially OOF in in most pleasing situations may still have has good detail.

[Humps n Bumps]

When I started reading this thread, I was confused.... now I'm even more confused and I have a headache. So many varying opinions, and I'm still none the wiser.

I was advised by I@M to put this photo up as an example of bokeh/boke.

Nice snake HnB but even more interesting is the fact that there is another thread raging away about the merits of bokeh being the circularly lit out of focus background areas of a photo and your shot has it in bucketfuls.

I reckon you should link it into this thread as another example.

This photo was taken with a 7yr old p&s Nikon, on the macro setting. I have not done any editing other than to crop it down.

I'm putting up a second shot as well, same camera, same setting, because I think it fits in with the topic. By all means, CC away.

#1


#2

[jjphoto]

AS others have said, bokeh is about the quality of the OOF areas and this is of course subjective too. It has nothing to do with quantity. Quantity comes from shallow depth of field. Quality comes from optical design and the right combination of optical aberations. A lenses bokeh can vary with focus distance and aperture too. The bokeh can also vary accross the frame itself. Example here (click on the image when it opens in a new window to see a larger version), look at how the lights on the Bolte Bridge are smooth and evenly illuminated in the centre of the frame but are squashed, bent doughnuts of light towards the corners.

A shallow depth of field may give you plenty of blur but if the blur is harsh/jagged, then you might describe the lens as having poor bokeh.

Some of the latest modern lenses can be so well corrected that their bokeh can some times be less attractive than their predecessors. The most notable examples of this are the M series lenses from Leica, specifically the ASPH (aspherical) lenses. These lenses are generally so sharp and well corrected that they have few if any peers, however, many Leica M stallwarts prefer the older non ASPH lenses because they can have a smoother bokeh!

JJ

[Slide]

This has been a great thread. I love smooth bokeh.

[arthurking83]

Yeah, me too, and really who doesn't!?



.... but I also like 'different' bokeh too!



did someone mention mirror lens?

[I @ M]

This photo was taken with a 7yr old p&s Nikon, on the macro setting. I have not done any editing other than to crop it down.

I thought that shot fitted in well with the discussion.
It contains plenty of out of focus background, quite a few of circles formed with light etc.
It seems to fit the definition of bokeh ( whether it is good, bad or indifferent is really in the viewers eyes I guess ) and I thought that with the roundish snake scales it fitted quite well.

[Slide]

I was looking at the shot thinking "are they donuts I see". Very nice quite a good shot very little donutting did you blur them in PP?

[arthurking83]

Not in this case.
Generally I do blur them out, if they look too horrid and they're not adding anything to the overall scene, but in this case it's an attempt to make it look 'other worldly' or 'prehsitoric' something like that.

I've seen some nice portraits taken with a mirror lens too, where the doughnuts add another dimension to the overall look of the image.

As as I've already said, the reason I wouldn't classify a totally smoothed out background as bokeh, is because it's not actually showing us anything about the background, nor the quality of the lens, hence it's just good subject isolation.
Even the mirror lens can do that.

[Nanny]

Now I wouldn't have a clue about this bokeh or dof
the green background is grass.

[Dylan & Marianne]

very interesting read - I didn't think it would turn out to be a discussion of linguistics
I think I'm going to stick with keeping it simple for myself.
For me, DOF /blur / Bokeh, leadin lines, lighting, motion blur, negative space, vignette etc done to varying degrees are all tools to draw the eye to a subject without being redundant in the image itself.

I hope this post doesn't generate any controversy lol

[Kym]

Make your own Bokeh !!

http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_create_your_own_bokeh

[kiwi]

Sports Bokeh

[N*A*M]

shaped bokeh is fun!

i'm with AK83 in that bokeh describes quality, and you need point light sources. without point light sources to take shape from passage through the lens, i feel it's just OOF areas.

[pollen]

I gave up trying to make sense of bokeh

First issue is that sometimes you can have a lot of background diffusion, but technically bad bokeh. e.g. the 85 f/1.2 lens gets its oof highlights chopped off by mirror box clipping. Is it bad or good? Looks nice, but not as nice as the perflectly round ellipses imo


Bokeh is so subjective it's hard to really judge, especially because it's impossible to control for factors like DOF and perspective when comparing lens bokeh.

e.g. It's generally regarded that the 85L has better bokeh than the 35L. Does it?




I think the 35L shot looks more pleasing, but is it because of better bokeh? or because the OOF highlights are more round? Or because the f/1.2 shot is too OOF? Or is it because the perspective of the 35L shot is more favourable? Who knows?

It's near impossible to evaluate JUST bokeh.

[TOM]

As as I've already said, the reason I wouldn't classify a totally smoothed out background as bokeh, is because it's not actually showing us anything about the background, nor the quality of the lens, hence it's just good subject isolation.

so in situations such as this Arthur, I would call that 'indistinct or plain boke' as opposed to good or bad boke, but as 'boke' refers to the out of focus area, it is boke nonetheless. you could also describe a 'slight' boke or a 'light' boke in other situations.

pollen, to me at least, the shot of the 85mm above is not as pleasing as the 35mm. i'd take that 85mm back for a refund

[swifty]

At least to me, Boke/h just refers to how a lens renders the out of focus portion of an image. Therefore they are intimately related and more or less describing the same thing and hence I woudn't classify any pic as bokeh vs shallow dof.
A shallow depth of field image usually has out of focus areas (unless it is of a flat object) and that area however nice, creamy, smooth, ugly, having shape,form/no shape or form, having highlights/no highlights etc. is still the boke/h. Just add a descriptive word in front of the word to say something about that out of focus area.

Below are two abstract images comprising of only bokeh or out of focus things.
Since both images have no part in focus, I don't think you could say one has shallower dof than the other. They differ only in how the lens renders this out of focus area and I can say eg. I like the bokeh of the top one cos its smoother/creamier or I like the bottom one cos it has more shapes and forms or whatever.

[brindyman]

i think in JMT's if the #2 was creamy boka it wouldnt fit the scene as well so i think in that sense its carried out very well