All-Time Best April Fool's

This takes the palm as my favorite all-time April Fool's Day post ever. Kudos to the talented Matt Laur and his PhotoPaint wizardry.

I'd ask for it back, but somehow I don't think that would work....

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Ben Rosengart]

That is truly impressive. Even more so once you read his explanation of how he did it. That is not a professional-quality photomanipulation job -- in that I doubt that most professionals pay so much attention to details.

[Tony Rowlett]

Agreed. Brilliant. Had me, too, for the better part of a few minutes before I caught on. Wanted to hook it up to my Noctilux!

[Neil The Wheel]

Mike: If you get a moment view this April fools trickery http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M4SkoJy3D0M If only we had this for our children.

Cheers,
Neil

[Miserere]

The joke was very funny and perfectly executed, but the funniest part was those first 4 commenters who took it seriously.

I figured out it was a joke the moment he mentioned your name, Mike. I know you would never throw out your bokehmeter.

[reid wolf]

Runnerup the Duckface Rendering Tool from Photoblographer

[Bryce Lee]

And Herr Johnston is given credit for the device!
Wonder if he could patent the meter for future long-range use,
as into this time next year?

A progress report on the effectiveness
of the interface between the device and all that encounter same!

[Kevin Purcell]

Shouldn't that meter be calibrated in Johnstons? That's the standard SI unit of bokeh since 1996.

Or the older cm erg second unit the Weese. I beleive the imperial unit, the Merklinger, was used in Canada for some time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

The English spelling bokeh was popularized in 1997 in Photo Techniques magazine, when Mike Johnston, the editor at the time, commissioned three papers on the topic for the March/April 1997 issue; he altered the spelling to suggest the correct pronunciation to English speakers, saying "it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable".

[ctein]

Dear Matt,

Oh god, I'm still gasping for air, amidst laughing fits.

BRILLIANT.

pax / Ctein

[David H.]

Too bad somebody had to alert everyone that it was an April Fool's joke so soon. It would have been a lot more fun if more had fallen for it.

[Chris Lucianu]

+5 EBBDM!

[Oren Grad]

I want one!

[Jason]

I too was disappointed that mr. buzzkill had to ruin the fun. Wonder how many people were hitting eBay looking for this?

[dave baker]

Reminds me of my wife when she came home bubbling about a coffee pipeline she heard about on NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5293443

[sebastel]

nice device, only it is missing the lens release button. once you attach a lens, it must stay there ...

[Steve Smith]

This was good. Equal to Kodak's 'Print Your Own Kitten' page they had up for the day.

[Iñaki]

The scale is very accurate.
One can wonder how precission japanese engineering can get to gauge propperly the quantity of microbokehs per square milimiter.

Definitely, a brilliant job.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

That is indeed a beautiful job on the image (text is good too).

Obviously targeted at Mike in particular and the TOP audience in general :-).

I think my personal favorite is the 1997 (I think) "The Internet will be closed for cleaning" email.

[Adam Isler]

This one's not even an April Fool's prank:
http://www.bokehmasterskit.com/
Adam