I posted this up in a group and was corrected (said they saw shallow DOF rather than bokeh) and given the link of some shoddy website in an effort to educate me about bokeh.
well, my understand of what consitutes 'bokeh' is the isolation of the main subject and blurring the background, which you did nicely imo...the two tone bg kinda distracts from the subject tho
Well, I think the most common definition is the quality of the out of focus areas of a photo. In your example, I think some lenses would not render the background as pleasing. I'd consider this good bokeh. The background here is not a real test of bokeh, since it is made up of fairly large, smooth areas. For me, the test of a lens' bokeh is how it handles a fairly busy background.
I see this was taken with an 85mm f1.8 on a Canon 5D. I have both and just love that lens, especially its bokeh! Some folks fuss about the purple fringe when shot wide open, but it usually isn't a factor for me.
BTW, I like your portrait! Next time, I suggest loading up a bigger image. 800 pixels wide on a landscape works well.
dmacmillan wrote:
Well, I think the most common definition is the quality of the out of focus areas of a photo. In your example, I think some lenses would not render the background as pleasing. I'd consider this good bokeh. The background here is not a real test of bokeh, since it is made up of fairly large, smooth areas. For me, the test of a lens' bokeh is how it handles a fairly busy background.
BTW, I like your portrait! Next time, I suggest loading up a bigger image. 800 pixels wide on a landscape works well.
Thank you. I just noticed that it was a bit small so I uploaded a larger image. Thanks once again for the comments.
Frankungstein wrote:
I posted this up in a group and was corrected (said they saw shallow DOF rather than bokeh) and given the link of some shoddy website in an effort to educate me about bokeh.
I need feedback here because maybe all these years I haven't learned what a creamy bokeh looked like.
JD
feedback appreciated.
weekend warriors who never shot film i'm guessing?
Main Entry: bokeh
Part of Speech: n
Definition: a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image
Example: The bokeh, or quality of the blurred image in the photograph, was described and discussed.
As others have said bokeh is background blur. Having shallow dof helps in getting creamier bokeh; lens focal length, aperture blades, etc, help too. So I'd say you're right on the dot and that group you posted in needs to get educated. They're not entirely wrong, there is shallow dof, but there is definitely bokeh here too, only way to avoid bokeh is to have everything in focus (?, I may be wrong here, who knows)
Dudewithoutape wrote:
As others have said bokeh is background blur. (?, I may be wrong here, who knows)
Nope, bokeh is not background blur, it's the quality of the blur. You can take the same subject at the same aperture with two lenses of the same focal length where one will have good (creamy) bokeh and the other will have busy, ugly bokeh.
Lots of things factor in: the shape of the aperture, the lens design, etc. Few blades like 5 or so, tend to create less pleasing bokeh. That's one reason Leica rangefinder lenses, such as Summicrons, look great. They don't have to stop down and open up on every exposure, so they use a ton of blades to make an aperture that's an almost perfect circle. Old, symmetrical lens designs usually render nice bokeh. Very simple designs, like the LensBaby single element lens, have nice bokeh (but a lot of other problems that are their selling point).
"it's the quality of the blur" Wrong it's just the blur there is good and bad bokeh but bokeh just the same.
By your own description "ugly bokeh" if it's the quality of the blur then ugly bokeh would not be bokeh just ugly.
