Bokeh Gone Mad

[jstp]

Hi,

I was in the backyard this afternoon trying to create that nice bokeh look with the main feature being a spider web, bokeh being my latest fad, I just like saying the word, it comes out different every time . The end result was not exactly what I had in mind but is still rather interesting I think. The sunlight on the leaves has made them seem like little lights. I am thinking I might try a b&w conversion to see what effect that has. Any C&C or ideas welcome.

Cheers

J

[ronno13]

I'l be dumb, and ask, "What is BOKEH"? Iv'e heard the word but have no idea as to it's meaning.

[Momo]

I'l be dumb, and ask, "What is BOKEH"? Iv'e heard the word but have no idea as to it's meaning.

It's the nice blur effect you see in the background. Usually, it's made of nice circles that look almost like individual blurred lights. Some people take it to an art form... like, placing a coffee cup in the foreground and using bokeh lights to make them look like steam coming off the coffee cup. I believe the word "bokeh" is derived from the Japanese word "boke" which means blur or haze.

[ronno13]

Thanks Momo

[arith]

I like it

[rpcrowe]

Piggy-backing on Darren's comment; Bokeh is the subjective quality of the OOF areas of an image. Usually, photographers consider "smooth" bokeh as nice and "choppy" bokeh as not so nice.

BTW: Bokeh is very often used when the person using the term really means narrow depth of field or selective focus. Bokeh should be used with qualifying adjectives (nice, beautiful, ugly, distracting, etc.) not with quantifying adjectives such as (lots of bokeh). However, bokeh is usually most noticable in images in which large areas are out of focus.

Bokeh is a factor of the lens, not the camera. A camera cannot have bokeh. Most often the contributing factor to the quality of bokeh is the shape of the aperture with the apertures forming a more perfect circle having the smoothest bokeh. Canon has gone one step further in their 70-200mm f/4L IS and 70-200mm f/4L IS ii lenses (and possibly other new issue lenses) by using rounded aperture leaves. This allows extremely smooth bokeh such as in this shot...



Since bokeh is a subjective term, all photographers will not agree on what is acceptable or unacceptable bokeh. As an example, I dislike the doughnut shaped highlights formed in the out of focus areas by a mirror lens but, I know that some photographers consider this effect as cool. Some photographers even cut patterns out of paper and place these in front of a lens to get highlights shaped like the hole in the paper. Hearts are a favorite shape cut out used. I also don't like this technique. Perhaps I am just a cranky old man!