On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 21:20:46 GMT, pchefurka@plaintree.com (Paul Chefurka) wrote:
>On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 18:14:31 GMT, Art Houston
>wrote:

>>Help please. I've been a photographer for a long time but I've only
>>recently been seeing this term, bokeh, in the context of lens quality.
>>Its not in my dictionary.

>It's a term borrowed from Japanese, and popularized a year or two ago
>in a Photo Techniques article.
>
>It refers to the quality of the out-of-focus portions of an image -
>specifically the rendering of o-o-f details or contrast edges. some
>lenses have a very smooth character (Leica 35 and 50 Summicrons are
>the canonical examples of this), and some lenses exhibit a "harsher"
>appearance, to the extent of a doubling of high-contrast transitions.
>The Nikkor 50/1.8 is often cited as an example of the latter, and my
>55/2.8 Micro also shows this characteristic.
>
>There is much debate as to what influences it - some say residual abbe
>rations, some say the number of blades in the diaphragm, others say
>it's the work of the magic photo pixies. It's uncertain to what
>extent "good bokeh" (i.e. the smooth kind) can be designed into a
>lens, and to what extent it's a happy accident of the overall lens
>design.
>
>There's also a lot of debate over whether it matters. Some feel that
>if the sharp bits are sharp, then the oout-of-focus bits don't matter.
>Others feel that the quality of those o-o-f bits adds to the overall
>"feel" of the image and is thus important.
>
>I think the reason the term comes out of Japanese aesthetics is that
>they have a tradition of valuing the "negative space" in images,
>considering the background to be of equal value to the subject. the
>traditional Western aesthetic ascribes more importance to the subject.
>
>Paul Chefurka

Nice explanation...!
However, some of us consider "bokeh" important, but prefer
"bad" bokeh - as in "bad bokeh" is good bokeh, and "good
bokeh" is bad...! ;-) For examples of photos that could not
be taken (or taken as well...) with lenses with "good bokeh",
I refer you to my web page - see the cat and car photos
under "Aht Fotoz", and most of the "Sun-Plants" series,
under "Changing Showz". These depend on a hard-edged
rendering of out-of-focus material...