Bokeh - the blurry way of photography / Discussions

Bokeh, what does that mean?

The word "bokeh" comes from the Japanese word "boke" (pronounced bo-keh) which literally means fuzziness or dizziness.

Bokeh describes the quality of background blug in a photo - for example how smooth and pleasing the blur looks. Usually bokeh relates to the background blur of an image, as in most pictures with bokeh the softness of the background blur is more important than the foreground blur - though there are some nice examples of foreground blur bokeh as well.

Bokeh is about the rendering of the out-of-focus points of light. Where sharpness means the point of best focus, bokeh is what happens away from the point of best focus.

Differing amounts of spherical aberration alter how lenses render out-of-focus points of light, and thus their bokeh.

Bokeh is not about how much the background is out of focus, it's about the quality of the background blur- about the silkiness, about the smoothness.

Bokeh is a very subjective kind of quality and often used together with the terms: "it looks much better than without it".

Bokeh is highly affected by the lens you choose for your photos. There are some high-quality lenses which result in a very smooth bokeh - but as well some cheap lenses perform with nice bokeh as well. Some old-school (very simple) lenses can make a very beautiful bokeh, too. (I'm going to start some threads about bokeh with different lenses).

(Parts of this informations are taken from: Bokeh- Smooth&Silky)


Where can I find further informations about bokeh?

Here are some URLs with additional informations:
- Neil van Niekerk's artical about bokeh (Worth reading!)
- Bokeh at Wikipedia
- Ken Rockwell about Bokeh
- Paul van Walree about Bokeh
- [more to be added]