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[OM] The Great Bokeh Debate [was] olympus-digest V2 #3112

Subject: [OM] The Great Bokeh Debate [was] olympus-digest V2 #3112
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 01:49:56 +0000
At 05:13 2/4/02, Mike wrote:

Forget about Bokeh. You can read a lot about it on the web (and probably will), but it is really pretty much a dangerous waste of time. It's true that some lenses are "better" than others, but what matters is that great photographs can be made with really garbage lenses. The Bokeh debate seems to grow out of the conversations of some camera buffs that would rather debate the quality of their lenses and equipment rather than take photographs with them.

[snipped out some great advice]

I wouldn't forget about it completely, but don't become obsessed by it. Its importance depends on the type of photograph being made. Poor "bokeh" can be a distraction in *some* otherwise well composed and technically well executed photographs. Some of what determines image bokeh is lens design, and some of it is situational with specifics about the "out of focus" background.

Several points about bokeh and its importance:
(a) Bokeh performance is not the only characteristic of a lens to think about. There are at least a half dozen others and most consider many of these other aspects of lens optics more important than bokeh. (b) Concern about bokeh is (in general) only applicable when using depth of field to isolate specific subject material. It's only applicable to certain types of photography and photographs. (c) There are many aspects of composing a photograph more fundamental than bokeh that should be considered first. It's very easy to make a photograph in which the bokeh is very pleasing but other, much more important aspects still make it a mediocre photograph. (d) Poor bokeh can be mitigated with careful composition, even with lenses that are the "worst" in this regard. A lens with mediocre to poor bokeh can make it more difficult, but very rarely impossible. A lens with excellent bokeh characteristics can still produce photographs with a distracting bokeh (the situational aspect of specific backgrounds).

I agree completely:
" . . . great photographs can be made with really garbage lenses."

A number of years ago I took a "basic" photography class because my other half saw it advertised and suggested it. A friend at work asked me how much more hardware the class was going to be used to justify buying. The discussion degenerated into a "dare" resulting in using a 50 year old rangefinder with only a 50mm lens for the entire class. It has a small, squinty viewfinder without framelines, knob winder, and its built-in non-TTL meter "unlinked" to shutter or aperture is merely an advisory "sanity check." After being accustomed to using a much more sophisticated SLR system it was a challenge, often constraining, but definitely not impossible. Best "dare" I ever accepted.

Lesson learned from the exercise:
Don't underestimate what can be done using a very basic camera with a single standard lens. A few other members of the class did and were surprised. It simply requires a thorough study of the subject material and sorting out how to celebrate it within the camera's constraints.

Throwing money at cameras and lenses cannot buy excellent photographs; the photographer must *make* them. Acer (currently lurking on this list) took a college level photography class with an OM-1n and just a couple of lenses (IIRC, a 50mm and a 28mm).

-- John


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