John,
It's a Japanese word. Basically bokeh is the concern over the character of
out-of-focus (OOF) portions of a photo.
Some lenses render those portions very "smoothly", i.e., the OOF circles
shot at f/2 are evenly-lit, blurred circles with soft edges. Typically
that type of bokeh lens a viewer to see the in-focus portion of the image
with a lot of "snap" and differentiation from the background.
Some lenses with "bad bokeh" concentrate much of their OOF lignt in the
outside of the circles, like a halo with a soft center. The less the light
is evenly distributed across the OOF circles, typically the worse the bokeh.
Also, lenses which have poor correction of aberrations (sp?) away from the
center can have good bokeh in the center, and poor bokeh nearer the edges
due to coma, astigmatism, and other problems that crop up. The OOF circles
can look distorted or weird.
It's a very subjective measure, and there are as many opinions as
photographers. But when you see a picture with good bokeh, it's nice.
Skip
Original Message:
-----------------
From: john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 15:51:29 +0000
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OM] Bokeh! Bokeh! Bokeh!
*bokeh*.
Sorry guys, but I've seen this word ever since subscribing to this
list some years back and I'm ashamed to say I don't know what it means
(and always been afraid to ask ;-)
Regards!
John Gruffydd (Mold, Wales, UK)
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