20 Years Ago Next Month: What Is 'Bokeh'?

By John Kennerdell

A still from "Legend" (2015), Dick Pope, director of photography. In 2014 Pope evidently went through just about every lens at a large London rental house before settling on some old Cooke Speed Panchros for his brilliantly photographed "Mr. Turner." In "Legend," the following year, he switched to Cooke S4s, a more modern design that nevertheless carries on the "Cooke look"—warm and rounded with notably smooth out-of-focus rendering.

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Introduction, 2017: Thank us or blame us, the notorious b-word first came to the West in a feature in the May/June 1997 issue of Photo Techniques magazine, following a discussion on out-of-focus lens character on the old Compuserve Photoforum. Oren Grad and I pointed out that the Japanese had a term for it: boke aji, literally, the "flavor of the blur." That seemed to grab the attention of the magazine's editor, a fellow called Mike Johnston. He announced that he wanted to do a piece on it. Great, I said, I look forward to reading it. Actually, he replied, I was hoping you'd write it. Oh...well, OK. I'd been in Japan since my student days and had learned most of my photography there, so the subject was certainly a familiar one.

If it had been up to me I might have mentioned the Japanese term once but then called it something in English. (The best translation, in my opinion, came years later from Adobe: "lens blur.") Mike's editorial instincts, however, proved right. For simplicity I dropped the aji, as the Japanese themselves often do, and Mike added a final "h" to make it clear that the word had two syllables. And so a new English word was born, and it was the word that created the buzz.

The concept itself was anything but new, even in the West. Professionals, whether in commercial photography, fashion, or cinema, had paid attention to the defocused parts of their images pretty much since the beginning. But plenty of amateur photographers apparently still felt uncomfortable on the subject of blur rather than sharpness, a concern you can see reflected in the cautious way I wrote my article.

So please enjoy the following as mainly a historical curiosity. After years of hobbyist fascination with ultra-shallow focus (which is not at all what this piece was about), it's amusing to see how exotic the whole subject must have sounded two decades ago. To try to update it a bit, I’ve added new illustrations and captions.

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What Is 'Bokeh'? By John Kennerdell
Photo Techniques magazine, May/June 1997

Sooner or later, almost all serious photographers come to grips with the question of image sharpness. They learn to evaluate it, and they explore equipment and techniques to help them achieve it. Surprisingly few of us, however, take a similar interest in the opposite of sharpness: the portions of a photographic image that are not in focus. It's a measure of our lack of concern that we don't even have a standard term in English for the fuzzy parts of a picture.

"Blur" comes closest, but covers too wide a territory (for example, motion blur, which has nothing to do with focus). What we need is a word that specifically refers to the qualities that a lens imparts to objects in front and behind the plane of focus.

Fortunately, the land that today gives us most of our photographic hardware has just such a word. The term is bokeh, and to spend time with Japanese photographers is to hear it constantly. They notice it, discuss it, and use it as a basis to choose and use lenses. Magazine lens tests routinely include photos demonstrating it, and certain lenses become renowned for it. In Japan, in short, bokeh is often as important an element of lens evaluation as sharpness, contrast, and all the other hard-edged criteria that we in the West apply to our lenses.

At this point the normal, sharpness-oriented photographer might begin to feel a little uneasy. Surely fuzzy is fuzzy, isn't it? Just how different can one unsharp image be from another?

The answer is very different indeed, once you start to look and compare. In many cases bokeh can be the most distinctive optical feature of a lens—a unique "signature" that appears only once you put away your hyperfocal formulas and open up the aperture. Rollei TLR users have debated the relative merits of the 80mm ƒ/2.8 Zeiss Planar and the 80mm ƒ/2.8 Schneider Xenotar lenses on their cameras for years. Generally they've come to the conclusion that both are outstanding and produce indistinguishable results. A bokeh specialist might politely disagree, saying that the Xenotar tends to slightly elongate out-of-focus highlights. A small difference, and not one that makes either lens "better" than the other, but the point is that even lenses that render sharp images identically will usually reveal themselves in the out-of-focus areas. If you have ever heard of someone squinting through a loupe at a negative and suddenly announcing the lens used to shoot it—the photographer's equivalent of guessing vineyard and vintage—the giveaway was almost surely bokeh.

Interestingly, even photographers who have never considered the issue of bokeh often appear to respond subconsciously to its effects. They instinctively tend to use wider apertures with lenses that render out-of-focus images attractively, and to avoid them with lenses that don't. Have you ever found yourself inexplicably preferring the look of certain photographs taken with a classic camera or even a point-and-shoot over those shot with your state-of-the-art SLR zoom? Look again. Odds are you may be reacting to bokeh.

From Migrations, Sebastiao Salgado. A rare example of selective focus from a man who is on record as saying, "I always close down my diaphragm to give huge depth of field...reality is full depth of field." What’s interesting is that despite the uncharacteristic technique, somehow it’s still pure Salgado.

The good, the bad, and the ugly
So what makes bokeh good or bad? Japanese photographers look for smoothness and naturalness above all. Good bokeh softens objects in front of the plane of focus (mae-bokeh), creating an unobtrusive frame for the rest of the image. Out-of-focus backgrounds (ushiro-bokeh) lose detail but maintain their basic shapes and tones. Good bokeh, like a good photographer, in effect works to simplify images and draw the eye to the main subject.

If good bokeh simplifies, bad bokeh does the opposite. Distracting blobs in the foreground, smeared or jumbled background shapes, choppy patterns of light and dark—these are the sights that make bokeh lovers wince. One common fault cited in Japanese lens tests is ni-sen ("two-line") bokeh: a tendency for out-of-focus objects to separate into two overlapping images. In extreme cases this can make an entire background look as if your eyes have become permanently crossed.

As far as most photographers think about these matters at all, they may associate the out-of-focus character of a lens with with the number of its diaphragm blades. Certainly the shape of the aperture can be seen in out-of-focus specular highlights, and more blades (like the 11 in the Leitz 50mm ƒ/1 Noctilux-M) tend to translate into smoother, rounder bokeh than fewer blades (like the five of the 100mm ƒ/3.5 Zeiss Planar CF, which shows nearly star-shaped out-of-focus rendering of specular highlights). But it's significant that many of the clearest differences between lenses are seen at full aperture, where the shape of the iris is irrelevant. Clearly then, other factors are at work, notably lens coatings (insofar as they affect flare) and optical formula.

Common wisdom in Japan says that good bokeh is most apt to be found in Gauss-derived and other older, more symmetrical lens designs, while retrofocus and zoom formulas seldom deliver first-class bokeh. Yet there are no lack of exceptions. The 50mm ƒ/4 for the Mamiya 6 for instance—a superb, classically designed lens—has received lackluster reviews for its out-of-focus character, while Zeiss zooms for the Contax system consistently win praise.

The irony here is that Japanese bokeh buffs almost universally prefer German lens designs to the modern designs from their own country. One popular theory holds that the remarkable high-resolution, high-contrast "snap" of the great Japanese lenses of the 1960s onward was achieved only by sacrificing the softer, more delicate bokeh that characterized those companies' pre-SLR lenses. In any event, Japan's manufacturers seem to have taken notice. Nikon's DC (defocus control) 105mm and 135mm lenses offer an adjustable moving element to alter bokeh. Canon claims to have paid particular attention to out-of-focus characteristics in the design of its newer EF lenses. And it's no coincidence that the lenses on high-end compact cameras like Minolta's TC-1 and Konica's Hexar mimic the look of the wide-angles that bokeh lovers like best.

From Cuba & Co., Harry Fisch. Foreground blur (mae-bokeh) often gets short shrift in discussions of lens blur. But just look at the dimensionality it can add to an image: focus, lighting, and composition all create a sense of space and lead the eye irresistibly to the main subject. This is also a fine example of what I meant by "rather than totally blowing away a background or foreground...subtly altering it" (see below). When good photographers purposely defocus something, notice how often it still serves as content rather than simple abstraction.

Focal length issues
Then there's the issue of focal length. For bokeh by the bucketful, nothing beats long, fast lenses. This helps explain the huge popularity of 300mm ƒ/2.8 lenses routinely used at their widest aperture for portrait photography in Japan, never mind the need for a bullhorn to talk to your model.

Many Japanese bokeh connoisseurs, however, find this too much of a good thing. Rather than totally blowing away a background or foreground, they're interested in subtly altering it, and it is here that certain lenses in the medium wide-angle to short telephoto range shine. Leica lenses remain a firm favorite among bokeh fans, particularly the 35mm Summicron-M, the 75mm Summicron-M, and the 80mm Summicron-R. Schneider is another much-respected brand, both for its larger format lines like the Super-Angulons as well as its wonderful legacy of lenses for 35mm cameras like the Kodak Retina. Zeiss and Rodenstock have strong followings, as do older names like Agfa, Voigtlander, and Kodak. Among Japanese brands, Minolta enjoys a fine reputation in the 35mm format, while the latest Bronica medium-format lenses are well regarded for their bokeh. But there are many more individual examples from other manufacturers, just as there are particular lenses that excel at sharpness or contrast, or lack of linear distortion, or any other quality.

Does it really matter?
Ultimately, even its Japanese proponents would admit that the beauty of bokeh is in the eye of the beholder. Out-of-focus characteristics of lenses aren't measurable or quantifiable—or at least no one, to our knowledge, has suggested how they might be—nor are they easy to describe in words. Bokeh is essentially an aesthetic judgement, and even photographers who value it don't always agree on its finer points. Where a highlight meets a shadow in an out-of-focus background, for example, some bokeh aficionados like to see a smooth gradation from light to dark. Others prefer a lens that maintains a distinct but somehow tenuous line between the two, a bit like the border where two watercolor washes meet. It's all a matter of taste.

Steelworker, Eugene Smith, 1955. This isn't a very good JPEG—the blacks shouldn't be nearly this blocked up—but it's enough to see how Smith used the steel mill to frame the worker's face and balance the composition. And again, it's sufficiently out of focus to distinguish itself from the main subject, but not so much as to lose its contextual meaning.

Negative space
The particular Japanese sensitivity to bokeh has clear historical roots. Artists in Japan have traditionally believed that the depiction of space around a subject is as important, in its own way, as the subject itself. Where we in the West are inclined to look at a picture and instinctively filter out the "empty" parts, the Japanese approach is to take it all in, enjoying the interplay of subject and space—or in this case, focus and blur. No wonder the character of that blur is of more than passing interest.

For the photographer addicted to overall focus and maximum depth of field, none of this needs to be a concern. However, for anyone who likes or needs large apertures and selective focus, bokeh is not only inevitable but also a valuable, if subtle, aesthetic tool. The sharply delimited plane of focus, after all, is the optical phenomenon that sets photography apart from the other visual arts. We already make conscious use of the in-focus performance of our lenses. Why not do the same for their out-of-focus characteristics?

Perhaps most importantly, bokeh has a way of captivating photographers' eyes and minds once they begin to look at it. And while nobody is likely to argue that an appreciation of of bokeh is required to create good photographs, it nonetheless seems to play its part in some great images. At a recent exhibit, far from Japan with anything but bokeh on my mind, I came across a print of Eugene Smith's classic "Steelworker." Out of focus in the distance is the roof of the steel mill. It is exactly the kind of background that many modern lenses (including the one on the camera slung over my shoulder at the time) would reduce to a drab sort of grayish blob. Smith's old screw-mount Leica lens holds it together in a beautiful, almost painterly way, and in doing so turns it into an effective part of the image. Mr. Smith was not a man to leave either the technical or aesthetic aspects of his work to chance. Even if he didn't know the term, he knew his bokeh.

John

My thanks to John for this whimsical stroll through the past. Neither of us can believe that 20 years have passed! Incidentally, late April—right around now—is about the time that the May/June issue would have arrived in subscribers' mailboxes, and at the editorial office of Preston Publications, Niles, Illinois, which published Photo Techniques. S. Tinsley Preston III was the publisher; Tinsley's father, Seaton, founded the magazine in 1979 as Darkroom Techniques. It ceased publication as of the last issue of 2013, after a good long run. I served as Editor-in-Chief from 1994 to 2000. —MJ

©1997, 2017 by John Kennerdell, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Journey through the past
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Benjamin Marks: "I remember well reading this article. It made a profound impression on me as, at the time, I was mildly obsessed with lens sharpness. It was one of those hit-to-the-head moments when you realize you have been charging in one direction with all the other lemmings only to realize that there was a whole culture out there that saw things differently, in 'negative space' as it were. Reading the words above was literally like a crow-bar in my mind and after I read the article I could never really look at the world of photography in the same way again. It has informed the way I look at picture ever since. The best thinking and writing will do that to you, and I am profoundly grateful for it."

John Willard: "Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has just passed on to the eternal open road. And hopefully it is a road of good quality. If he had been a regular reader of this site you would have gotten an epic comment from him about this thing called bokeh."

Christopher May: "It's interesting to read the article that kicked off what has turned into almost an obsession. I'm particularly amused by the opening sentence. The whole sharpness quest rages on in this era of pixel-peepery but the same can almost be said of bokeh now. While I occasionally read about other lens parameters that matter, it seems that sharpness and bokeh are now the defining qualities that just about every photographer mentions when discussing lenses.

"I honestly think the bokeh obsession might be even stronger than the sharpness quest now. I'm always kind of amused when people compliment one of my pictures because of its 'nice bokeh.' Um, OK. Thanks, I think. It's kind of wild to me that someone would compliment the picture based solely on one lens characteristic. Can you imagine if a commenter offered praise over, say, distortion? 'Really lovely pincushion distortion!'

"Additionally, I've often found that the comments regarding bokeh are kind of oddly applied. Sometimes they're made on photos from lenses that don't feature particularly nice bokeh, IMHO. Merely the presence of out of focus elements is enough to elicit a response about how lovely they are. Sometimes the comments are referencing a background so insanely outside the depth of field that a catadioptric lens could render it as a smooth wash of color. In either case, it adds to my consternation about an odd compliment.

"And of course there seems to be the new quest for truly awful bokeh. Seeing the success of Meyer Optik's revival of the Trioplan for a substantial sum of money has given me pause more than once. I suppose life would be dull if we all liked the same things, though.

"Anyways, thanks for the re-publishing of an interesting article. I truly enjoyed reading it since I missed it during its first appearance."

Comments

[Manuel]

Two thoughts:

1. This article brought me some fond memories of my Shotokan Karate days. I used to be familiar with the words 'mae' and 'ushiro' and knew their respective meanings, so it was nice to read them here. (The simplest forward kick in Shotokan Karate is called 'mae-geri', while the rearward kick is known as 'ushiro-geri.')

2. This said I'm cancelling my TOP subscription, as a consequence of becoming aware it was Mr. M. C. Johnston who coined the most nerve-wrecking word in the photographic lexicon. So that's it. I'm out.

(Just kidding. What a great reading this was!)

[Herman]

I would have prefered to have the background in
focus, but the available light didn't allow it.

[Stephen Scharf]

Regarding boke aji, I find that the fairly recent and overarching preoccupation with this appears to be largely internet photo forum geek-driven. To my mind, the key question here is: what is good overall photographic composition? I think John's comment that bokeh should be a subtle, aesthetic tool is the right level of how to think about this. Bokeh is, and should be, part of this discussion, but IMHO, it should not be a reason for OCD, either. Folks now are demanding faster and faster glass so they can achieve shallower and shallower depths of field. It seems to have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some guy recently got really PO'd at me for questioning whether he really needed "millimeter-level" planes of DOF. Seriously? This has also led to the behavior of some folks shooting everything "wide-open"....and as good as most lenses are today, the majority of them do not provide maximal optical performance when shot wide-open. For my own photography, it's not really much of an issue; most of my work requires as much DOF as possible, not as little. Modern racing cars are pretty long from front to back....

[MikeR]

I recently had reason to scan a negative from 1987. Surprised to see that the picture of my then 2-year-old youngest sister-in-law had a very nice bokeh,taken with my Canon AE1 and a Tokina zoom that never left the camera.

I first learned of bokeh and what it was about 5 years ago.

[brad]

Hi Mike;

There are a lot of pro photographers locally. I can remember seeing a fashion photographer with a tripod mounted 300 f2.8 pointed down the sidewalk. I began looking for his subject.. she was a half city block away with an assistant and stylist. I figure they used radios to communicate.

I once did a portrait with a 180 and spent a lot of my precious allotted time running back and forth between subjects and camera.

I do a lot of portraits with a 50. The subject can hear a whisper. Communication is more important to me. Bokeh - smokah..

[brad]

If you would add.. Smith and Salgado could/can really see. That's a gift, something that can't be learned I think.

[John Krumm]

What a fun read that was, both the new and the old. Arguing about bokeh can be as bad as arguing about any other image quality, but I do like learning about it from someone who knows what they are talking about.

While I tend to be an "everything sharp" guy, there are times when I like a little blur, and even a lot. And I still play with blur at times like a total newbie, as with this shot of a lighted bus-stop mural on a rainy morning when a pedestrian walked into the frame. There's a red bokeh ball on his head, sort of the bokeh equivalent of the classic lampshade. And look at the coma on the light points...

[Paul Metcalf]

In recent years I've done a major cleaning out of my photographic books/materials, etc. as I was simply not using or reading most of what I had. What I did keep though includes an original of this article (and the companion Terminology of Bokeh article by Oren Grad). These had a strong influence on me, but in some ways conflicting. I also still have the original copy of the Mar/Apr 1996 Photo Techniques magazine, of which on the cover is a picture of a Conley 5x7 Large Format Camera. This issue also had articles by Stephen Peterson and Paul Hansma covering image sharpness and view camera focusing. Several weeks after receiving that issue I had a Conley 5x7 in my hands (which I restored), and that was the start of my large format journey that now also includes 4x5 up to 8x10 film and printing (projection and contact), which I still do and plan to do as long as materials in possession hold out. Sufficient sharp focus over the entire image area in all three dimensions was my complete focus (pun intended). The Bokeh article addressed an area I had put aside since moving away from 35mm format, that being selective focus. I dabbled a bit with some old petzval lens designs but that is more appropriately considered "soft focus" rather than selective focus (or selective blur). I'm still seeking where my digital photography will take me but one thing that intrigues me (with myself LOL) is that I'm now doing more selective focus work with my digital camera (canon 6d) and lenses than ever before.

[Eamon Hickey]

I may have posted this before; if so, please ignore!

Once, while busily procrastinating, I did a little research on the word bokeh, as used in English. (Somebody was claiming it was in common use before the Photo Techniques articles were published, which I knew to be untrue.)

I have access to Lexis-Nexis, and its database did contain one (and only one) prior English-language citation of the word, and it's not referring to photography. Instead, it uses the word to denote mental blur, which I thought was really interesting. It's from the Nov. 8, 1990 edition of The Washington Post, in an article by T.R. Reid about the reluctance of the Japanese population to allow their Prime Minister to send any Japanese troops overseas. Here's the relevant paragraph:

" ... much of the country seems to be fearful of any foreign involvement. The attitude, dating back to Japan's disastrous defeat in World War II, is a broader and longer-lasting version of what in America came to be known as the "post-Vietnam syndrome." The term for it here is heiwa bokeh, which translates as "peace senility.""

What a lovely phrase and idea: peace senility.

So this doesn't in any way change the story of bokeh in its photographic sense in English. But in its "mental blur" sense it did escape Japan as early as 1990, and the Post editors decided to transliterate it with the 'h', just as Mike did a few years later. Great minds think alike!

[John Camp]

If anyone is interested, the excellent movie "Margin Call" makes extensive use of shallow focus, and in some shots will go back and forth between two people, in and out of focus depending on who is speaking.

[Dan Khong]

Heck, I am hearing it for the first time that MCJ first mooted the use of "bokeh".

Now it's been used and repeated a zillion times. Imagine the royalty you would have enjoyed (if that was possible) if patency rights could be applied to a new word.

[james nicol]

one does not focus a wide angle lens selective focus is a pre set normal lens and longer technique with commercial applications

[Pat Gerlach]

I remember the article well. It filled in a gap for me. I felt much smarter knowing and using the word bokeh, especially since few of my peers had read the article.

[Darlene]

Love the article! As the author states, "it's all a matter of taste" when it comes to aesthetic judgement. Here is a sample of what I find pleasing in bokeh. This is coming from a rental Fuji x100f shot at f/2:

[Derek]

From a just acquired Nikkor 105mm f/1.4

[Carsten Bockermann]

>>the 75mm Summicron-M, and the 80mm Summicron-R<<

Both are Summilux (f/1.4) lenses.

[fk]

What's accidental bokeh in Japanese? Bloody @*#!

[Tom Bell]

Some classic portrait lenses like the Pentax 77ltd I think are at their very best stopped down by 1-2 stops from wide open. As far as I can see the lense which renders very sharp centrally but tails off, as it were, peripherally gives such lovely results without too narrow a depth of field.
I am just not sure if at my great age I really want to carry that K1 around!

[Bob Johnston]

I was able to join a group for a tour of the Cooke factory in Leicester. I think it was in 2015. The lenses, used in so many movies, are largely hand made and the tour was fascinating. The lens design however is done with proprietary software. I asked how they kept the 'Cooke Look' in their lenses. Apparently it has been mathematically described and is built into the design program. They do make some lenses for large format but I wouldn't like to ask how much they cost!

[Tom Duffy]

I've long been partial to the Summilux R 80mm f1.4 lens for its treatment of out of focus areas. Unfortunately, attached to an R8 or R9, you're rivaling a medium format camera in terms of size and weight. Great results also from the 135mm f2 Canon "L" lens.
I'm also experimenting with the "portrait" mode of the iPhone 7. It's certainly a step in the right direction for those who don't like the wide angle infinite depth of field rendition of a cell phone camera.
Finally, articles like this remind me just how good magazines like Photo Techniques and Camera and Darkroom were. Must have been the editors!

[Mark Morris]

Did you enjoy your editing jobs?

[I did. Really all I've wanted is to stay in the field of photography one way or the other--that was my goal when I graduated from photo school. The editing was just another way to do that.

Are you an editor? --Mike]

[Andrew Lamb]

After reading the Lens Collector's Vade Mecum, I became mildly obsessed with Cooke lenses. I bought a 75mm Speed Panchro and a 100mm Deep Field Panchro and had them converted for use on EOS cameras.

Whatever magical properties these lenses possessed totally eluded me. I tested them out every way I could think of and nothing looked special.

Then I read that the truly fabled Cookes were Series II and I managed to buy a 40mm Speed Panchro II. I got it converted for use on a Leica M. Nope, nothing special. In fact, as cinema lens, it didn't fully cover 35mm and vignetted horribly.

I drew several conclusions from: I'm not very good at testing lenses, cinema lenses are designed for the big screen and, finally, a photographic fool and his money are soon parted.

[Bruce McL]

Rhymes with Muskogeh, right?

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.

[Brian Taylor]

So that 's what editors are for! There can't be many other instances where inserting a single letter has opened so many creative possibilities.

[hugh crawford]

I'm a reasonably geeky guy who reads Kingslake for relaxation, and I always wonder why so many lenses have really beautiful out of focus images in the foreground but awful background images with harsh bright rings around the out of focus highlights. I would pay good money for a lens that was the reverse. The lens on my Autocord is pretty nice and I am surprised by how nice an old Schneider Xenar from a Braun Paxet works on my Sony a7.

The bright ring syndrome is the worst in fast lenses so I sometimes find myself stopping down to f/3 to make the background less distracting.

Anyway, is there someone here who can explain this?

[Michael Perini]

@John Krumm
Beautiful Picture

[Luke Smith]

How's your back?

[Healing nicely, thank you, and thank heaven. Each day it's a little better. I think I'll be back to 100% in a few more days, a week at most.

I really sympathize with all those who deal with chronic pain of any kind. It's a species of torture. --Mike]

[Alan Carmody]

Thank you for the tip-off about "Legend."

The cinematography is truly gorgeous (bokeh everywhere!). This is an astonishing feat, considering that the film is set in the very drab, grimy and shabby London East-End of the early 1960s.

Worth watching for that reason alone, though Tom Hardy's acting is equally extraordinary. Violent gangster movie advisory.

[JK]

Eamon, if I ever bump into Tom Reid again I'll be sure to tell him that he beat me into print with that word!

Probably a reflection of our times, but one seldom if ever hears "heiwa bokeh" in Japan any more. But the word still comes up in the very common expression "jisa bokeh": "ji" = "time", "sa" = "difference", hence "jet lag".

And for the final irony, in recent years Japanese photo writers have evidently decided they need a cool new loanword instead of "bokeh", so one now often sees the fractured English expression "outo fokasu".

[Dave New]

Speaking of Photo Techniques, I have the privilege of the acquaintance of one Howard Bond, who had a column in Photo Techniques for some time. He and his wife are frequent attendees at the local camera club, and he is still doing black and white darkroom work and shares it regularly with us on print night. Very inspiring, although I'm not sure I've seen much of anything from him with anything out-of-focus. Being a member of the f64 group, I imagine that would not be his cup of tea.

[Mike Fewster]

There is no "real" bokeh. DOF is real but bokeh, the way out of focus is rendered, is quite artificial and varies according to a whole lot of lens designs factors. It is just as "authentic" to control the look of bokeh by PP adjustment to give out of focus area the "look" the photographer desires as it is to acccept the out of camera result. PP bokeh is almost certainly the way it will be managed in the future. Already Alein Skins "Bokeh" program enables the photographer to PP select bokeh that looks like the effect you get with a lens of your choice ( You can select the bokeh that takes your fancy from a range of famous lens foptions).

The problem with the Alien Skins program is that it ant read depth so you get a two plane effect with the subject, then a flat "bokehed" background. With work, if you wish, more gradual transitions can be done. All that is needed to do the trick is to have depth data available to the program. This is exactly what Apple is doing with its dual lens cameraphone and what Light 16 is doing with its multi lens panel.

ie., We are almost there. DOF bokeh of your choice will soon be something that can be done either in camera or PP just as lens correction is now done. I noted that Sony chief executives have stated that while they have no immediate plans, they are watching the development of multi image computational techniques very closely.

Given the iQ that can now be obtained at higher and higher isos, one suspects that the days of those beloved very fast lenses may be numbered.

[thomas hobbes]

Hugh Crawford – If I recall correctly, Dr. Hubert Nasse of Zeiss fame does a good job of explaining the interplay between front bokeh and back bokeh in lens design. Link: http://lenspire.zeiss.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/cln35_en_web_special_bokeh.pdf

A cheap jupiter-3 stopped down to f/2.5 looks great to me with regard to back bokeh (as does the zm 50/1.5 at f/2).

Somebody else mentioned it, but there was no Leica m 75mm summicron when the article was printed and there has never been an R 80mm summicron. I assume John meant the summilux versions of both those lenses, and I also personally really like both those lenses for their bokeh though they can be a bit busy wide open too.