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Re: [OM] Bokeh (was "Zuiko 250mm f2")

Subject: Re: [OM] Bokeh (was "Zuiko 250mm f2")
From: Joel Wilcox <jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 10:45:20 -0500
At 03:52 AM 6/21/1998 PDT, you wrote:
>Giles wrote:
>
>< [a whole lot of stuff about 'bokeh']
>
>pardon my ignorance, but what the blazes is BOKEH ??
>
>Regards
>
>Andy
>
Hi Andy,

It's a Japanese word that cannot be translated, apparently, sort of like
"Zuiko," which helps preserve a bit of the mystery of the Orient. <g>
However, in context it usually means something like "my lens is better than
yours."  Or, "What I paid for this fast lens is certainly worth it."  It
could be, one might surmise, a version of the emperor's new clothes. The
lens that you really, really want and can't afford probably has it, if you
know what I mean.

Seriously, it is probably best described as a function of a lens' focal
sharpness at its wider apertures against the out-of-focus background. Like
most things, it's objective up to a point, but in discussing those last,
highly subjective qualities of a fine lens, the word "bokeh" tends to come up.
  
Couple of the things I find interesting about discussion of bokeh. The
beauty of a lens' bokeh seems always to be stated with reference to a
subject's background, since that is the part of a composition which is
usually out of focus. I've never seen a reference to the bokeh of
foreground objects, since out-of-focus objects in the foreground tend to
betray bad compositional technique. But good bokeh should not objectively
reside more in a blurred background than foreground, although human
esthetic judgment seems mostly to put it there. Therefore, I tend to think
the concept is really a backdoor reference to a lens' sharpness which can
best be seen and enjoyed with really fast lenses (primes, obviously;  never
zooms), and usually in the shorter tele ranges, 85-105, although sometimes
with the really fast normal and WA lenses too. 

Then again I have somewhat slower lenses, I like tripods, and I prefer
maximum DOF in most situations, and I'm skeptical by nature of all but my
own precious idiosyncracies.  The champions of bokeh I own are the Zuiko
85/f2 and a N*kk*r 85/f1.8, but as I say I think all this essentially means
is that they are fast, sharp lenses. Good contrast probably helps too, as
Giles mentioned. I'm very skeptical that it has anything to do with the
number of leaves in the diaphragm, however. The 85/f2 has 8; the N*kk*r
85/f1.8 has 6!

Joel  

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