New page on BOKEH

[Steve Hamley]

But apparently all Leica lenses were not created equal. If you look at one of Cartier-Bressson's famous shots of Albert Camus, you'll see some very nasty bokeh. Look at the bright stuff in the background.

http://www.2idiotsinaboat.com/pilgrim/media/camus.jpg

Steve

[Ara Ghajanian]

But apparently all Leica lenses were not created equal. If you look at one of Cartier-Bressson's famous shots of Albert Camus, you'll see some very nasty bokeh. Look at the bright stuff in the background.

Steve
Looks like he was using my Nikon E series 50mm f1.8. It gets the same kind of bokeh, but in some situations it's actually interesting.
Ara

[MattCarey]

Steve
Looks like he was using my Nikon E series 50mm f1.8. It gets the same kind of bokeh, but in some situations it's actually interesting.
Ara

Interesting-- I haven't tried the 50mm Ser. E, but I was considering it. The 100mm has very nice bokeh.

Matt

[Curt]

I spent many years in the Far East and Bokeh was a way of life. You not only see it but you believe it.

[kunihiko]

Japanese word "bokeh" sounds charming like "wabi-sabi" thing, dosen't it ?
Fireclacker is right, advertisement. Western people should be carefull. Have an english word for it and keep "bokeh" as another mystery of a small island in the far east

If it's important, it is very important. If it's not, it isn't. For me, it's more important than sharpness or something, when I make a picture of "bokeh". In those pictures, out_of_focus area is the subject too. It's not a story of blurred background.

Curt, you are lucky to feel it.

Jimgalli, thank you for your interests. Though I don't know how to discribe, some said somewhere, Zeiss seems to design their picture to be graphical. It makes sence, maybe. I just preffer gentleness in "bokeh". Planar's way looks too much for me.

[celluloidpropaganda]

I never realized that Albert Camus was Joe Strummer's long-lost brother until just now.

[celluloidpropaganda]

I find that most examples of 'bad bokeh' I see are issues of focus and composition rather than lens design.

I don't believe any lens on Earth is going to perform admirably when you've got a busy background and an in-focus 'subject' that takes up 1/10 of the frame.

[firecracker]

But apparently all Leica lenses were not created equal. If you look at one of Cartier-Bressson's famous shots of Albert Camus, you'll see some very nasty bokeh. Look at the bright stuff in the background.

http://www.2idiotsinaboat.com/pilgrim/media/camus.jpg

Steve

I know what you mean because they were hand-made. But generally speaking, an old non-Ai 50mm F1.4 Nikkor lens, which tend to produce the blurry part a little jazzier/noisier than a collapsible 50mm F2 Smmicron. However, old Nikkor 105mm F2.5 macro is an exception for its outstanding quality, which I've never used but seen the results every once in a while.

But the point is when you take a pciture, that is only one moment and that's it. It's so spontaneous, so it's almost pointless to discuss especially in the field of photo journalism.

Look at the famous picture of Marc Riboud, of a girl holding a flower in front of police guards in an anti-war demonstration, the depth of field is so shallow in that image and the background is so blurry, and that takes up a large part of the picture. Is it a good bokeh? No, it isn't for me. I don't know what kind of lens he used to get this shot, but I bet that was not his top priority. But does the bokeh question come across my mind when I see the picture? No, unless someone is whispering to my ear about the bokeh/blur quality. It's almost irrelevant.

This is a bit off-topic, but to make an analogy here, you can look at the preference of animal and fish meat. Japanese tend to like them with fair amount of fat in it, on the other hand, Americans and Europeans go for lean meat only. I think the Japanese think fat is a flavor and adds more flavor to the rest of the meat, so they keep it.

Although this probably has a lot to do with their diet, I'm almost led to believe that the Japanese want more little, tiny, and extra flavors and textures in their food or whatever, and that's considered to be the culture here.

And I think the same thing can be said about the texture of the blur in the photographs. Especially if you're doing still life or want to do a macro shot of a flower or something that's hardly moving and changing to your eye, then you have time to test out different lenses.

I mean, in a sense of Japanese bokeh style, it seems bokeh is sometimes more important than a subject for a macro shot. I'm being a bit sarcastic, but that's kind of what I see sometimes.