What is bokeh? My simple write up

[roentarre]

Bokeh

Every one of you might have heard of ‘bokeh’, a real technical term often used by professionals. Searching through the track records, it was found that it was a misspelled Japanese word, boke that meant fuzzy and blurry areas.
For a common person like you and me, we really need to understand the concept of ‘Bokeh’ in a step by step procedure...

Here is my write up

James Wei :: Photography

Hope this one helps

 

[Torus34]

Thank you for the link and the information.

I am not certain that you and I agree completely on the formal definition of 'Circle of Confusion', though.

 

[Marc Kurth]

I do my best to avoid using the word these days because everyone is so hung up on what constitutes good/bad Bokeh. The problem is that it is purely subjective. Real working Pro's don't spend a lot time talking about it, they find a lens with pleasing characteristics and go to work with it.

I will respectfully say that your write up about CoC will completely mislead people into thinking that it means something that it does not. The definition for DoF purposes is very, very simple.

Marc

 

[chadsdphoto]

Real working Pro's don't spend a lot time talking about it, they find a lens with pleasing characteristics and go to work with it.

Yep, I'm a working pro and hadn't even heard the term until lately. I'm not interested in being able to talk the latest "photo speak" just to sound impressive. If you use depth of field properly for each shot you take, whether it's shallow or deep, that's what you need to know. Not some strange term made up to describe it.

 

[Sodak]

To me you flower looks a tab bit underexposed.

 

[ANDS!]

I wouldnt classify bokeh as technical speak: it is simple how out of focus light is rendered; different lenses renders light differently. Bam - straight to the point. If someone wants to know the math of it, there are a ****load of resources out there, but I've never found why its confuses folks so.

 

[Dwig]

I wouldn't classify bokeh as technical speak: it is simple how out of focus light is rendered ...

While bokeh is for the most part technical jargon, you are correct in that it refers to how the out of focus image is rendered. It is not a term describing the quantity of out of focus. The OP has his definition slightly wrong in this respect.

Here's a link to the real definition by the writer/photographer, Mike Johnston, that coined the term:

The Online Photographer: What Is Bokeh?

BTW, "bokeh" is not a misspelling. It is an intentional alternate spelling to facilitate a more proper pronunciation. The traditional rendering of the Japanese in Latin characters is "boke" which tends to be mispronounced to rhyme with "broke".