What is Bokeh?
Ok, thousands of hands up (generous estimation of my readership).
Bokeh to many, and this is based on the perception of current practitioners is “balls of light in the background and their shape/quality”.
Partly true.
Mike Johnston, then editior of “Camera and Creative Darkroom Techniques” who (1) wrote the first articles in the west in the subject and (2) anglicised the name*, said it is literally “the flavour of the blur”, a term used by the Japanese for a form of art technique, but can also be used to describe “fuzzy” headedness. Notice it does not say the amount of the blur, just the flavour.
In Japan this has been a constant since before their appreciation of lens characteristics, but to the Western eye and ear, it was the result of a Japanese based photographer John Kennerdell talking to Johnston about something the Japanese revered, but we had no definition for, so he dedicated an entire edition of the magazine to it.
The main thing to keep in mind is Bokeh is almost always a factor in any image, or more precisely, the transition area from in-to-out of focus, something almost all images share unless you are into shooting brick walls or glass panels.
For me it was a revelation and put a name to something most of us were responding to, we just did not have a way of quantifying it. The Schneider vs Rodenstock looks now had a defined difference. Ironically, the Japanese were often bigger fans of German lenses for that very look, selling us their own lenses, that often were not rated as well.
More recently, coincidentally about the same time as the articles, Canon as one example had started to design their new EF range with Bokeh in mind, the 35 f2, 100 macro (1st ed) and others were getting strong reputations in Japan (and were featured in the articles) and their timing was perfect.
The 35mm is interesting, because it was emulating the great German lenses of the past, concentrating on smoother transitions with a wider lens at smaller apertures and longer distances than the current trend of more blur is better.
This image has an element of Bokeh. The lens is the 45mm Olympus f1.8 at about f4 or 5.6 from memory. The clouds are rendered slightly softer than the building front, the second building also, although only very slightly. The way a lens renders both of these elements is Bokeh, just as much as a close in shot at f1.8. Not a glowing ball in sight.
The use of words in our language is ever changing, but this must be a record. The word came into limited use in the later 90’s, when it was adopted by the small group of people in the know, then the masses grabbed it, Apple among others mangled the name (creating the mongrel dog weapon, the Bow-Kerr) in a series of ads and there you have it, new meaning, new name, little accuracy to source.
I guess that is a thing now, but what about the actual phenomenon? Often a point of derision for many older photographers, it is still a real element in their work, even if the one way of describing it has been hijacked.
The damage is done and the dye cast, but I still reserve the right to push back a little, as much to retain the relevance of defining blurring quality in all its forms.
My Leica 15mm and Olympus 17 are a case in point.
They are nearly the same on paper, very different in use. The Olympus lens, designed I feel specifically for street shooters has (what I call) elongated transition or long throw Bokeh. This means that it retains cohesion in out of focus areas seemingly at odds with its math.
Even wide open with roughly the same distance from me to the first woman and then her to the next, cohesive detail is retained. The look is very old school Leica looking. You feel the woman in front is sharper, your eye is drawn to the woman behind and she seems perfectly sharp enough, then you come back tot he first woman with a “snap” of realisation that she is sharper again.
The 15mm is much more “modern” in its rendering, faster to drop away.
I am fine with soft and round highlights when there is no avoiding them, but this is not all there is to it. The IRIX macro is always going to require nice blur rendering, because being a long macro, it will see plenty.
The IRIX 150 at T3 has “feathery” Bokeh, which I feel tells a story better, even if it is a little less “perfect” to a modern viewer. Think I like the colour out of the IRIX more also.
The IRIX needs to have good Bokeh at normal distances though, because it is also a cinema lens. This is a real test of the lens, because it will determine if it has more than one use.
The Lumix-S 85mm at a wider aperture of f2 (and different framing) shows very modern “spongy” (my term) blurring and a more dramatic sharp-to-soft separation (keep in mind it is a shorter lens). To me it feels less settled, more subject oriented, but cleaner. The difference is in the flowers.
Not much to be done I guess except keep the history of the word and it’s use alive as long as possible.
Regardless, we use Bokeh daily, even with our own eyes and that will not change. How we use it is up to us and our needs and whether we call it out or just accept it is also up to us, but it is and it forever will be part of image making.
Just a last one for fun.
*Bo-ke, he added the “h” for pronunciation, but it did not work.