When Will The Bokeh Craze End

[SquarePeg]

The best (or worst) part of that Smoke is that the photos that are the examples are terrible! lol

Go ahead and rant Wade, we're with ya! lol I first looked at Instagram, read the Terms, and decided - forget it! Then more recently I set up an account to be able to view someone's Instagram (related to cross stitch/embrodery), but I recently closed it out, I'd had enough of email notifications etc. even though I'd unchecked every box possible!! lol I think you kind of start to realize, who needs it? do you miss it when you stop using it? So far I haven't.

I’ve never received an email notification from Instagram. That being said, if you can’t turn them off, just mark the sender as junk and you won’t see them anymore.

 

[Derrel]

Instagram has really changed. It has morphed into quite an advertising vehicle. At first all images posted to Instagram were in a square format ,but now both horizontal and vertical pictures are seen, as well as video clips. Over the past year the ads,or as they call it, sponsored content, has become a real impediment to enjoying feeds of various people. Instagram has now become a corporate advertising vehicle with all types of healthcare and travel and insurance companies forcing their crap upon users.

 

[Designer]

..last a Lifetime ..

I see what you did there.

I noticed my wife was watching a movie on Lifetime (A Christmas Gift), so I said; "I thought you didn't watch Lifetime anymore." She said she was burned out by the Hallmark Chanel.

 

[DanOstergren]

"How dare you bokeh my kid!" And the accused mother says," I would never bokeh your kid".

I thoroughly enjoy this dialogue.

 

[waday]

Go ahead and rant Wade, we're with ya! lol I first looked at Instagram, read the Terms, and decided - forget it! Then more recently I set up an account to be able to view someone's Instagram (related to cross stitch/embrodery), but I recently closed it out, I'd had enough of email notifications etc. even though I'd unchecked every box possible!! lol I think you kind of start to realize, who needs it? do you miss it when you stop using it? So far I haven't.

Don't give me free rein to rant!

The Hallmark Christmas movie Christmas light bokeh balls are eclipsed only by the Hallmark Christmas movie fake snow. And let us not forget the Hallmark Christmas movie street scenes where even the alleys and dumpsters are decorated.

as you may have guessed, I’ve seen enough of these to last a Lifetime movie dramatic pause.

LOL! Yes! And the fact that they change the white balance to blue or even desaturate portions of the video to make it look like it's cold and snowy outside. You can't get rid of leaves on trees!

 

[Kiron Kid]

I thought it was circles of confusion

Another fad that cannot go way fast enough is photographers psychotic obsession with the word "Sharp"...... or worse (vomit) "Tack Sharp".
Photography would improve 9x if nobody ever worried about "that" again..... Ever.!

Don't forget 90% of photography is teen agers trying to be trendy hipsters by posting 50 pictures of their lunch on instagram every day.

You definitely don’t have a teenager. They are over Instagram. The adults and advertisers took it over.

Not soon enough.

 

[idle]

I'd like to murder whoever invented this word (I'm not gonna use it: I'll use "Out Of Focus Areas" instead OOFA!). I never heard it back 'in the day' and only heard of it around 2010 or later (maybe I'd heard it but didn't pay attention). Yes, some lenses and techniques produce nicer out of focus than others and it seems that mostly that's due to the number of aperture blades a lens has.
I have lots of old cameras and most of the old ones have 8/10/12 aperture blades. Shooting them, I note that even my 1950's Super Paxette produces smoother OOFA than my lenses from the 80's and 90's. It seems that manufacturers reduced the number of blades, probably to reduce cost, and some even had systems to create smoother OOFA.
My Minolta A7 film camera for instance, has a special mode, STF or “smooth trans focus”. I used to have the actual STF lens but didn't use it much. The camera achieves this '“smooth trans focus” by taking seven exposures on a single frame at varying apertures creating a 'nicer' OOFA.
Perhaps this indicates the evolution of the word I won't use. The A7 was one of the last high end 35mm camera designs before digital took over.
Many people looking at the camera would think it IS digital with its big rear screen (for setting controls etc).
Anyway, I've improved the quality of my lenses over the years, trading cheap lenses for better glass (from alt brands to Minolta and Zeiss). I use OOFA constantly to isolate the subject from the background and it's the isolation that grabs me, not the shape of the OOFA. Yes, some of my lenses make bubbles, one makes doughnuts, others just make smooth OOFA. I don't usually choose my lens for the OOFA though, I choose it to suit the shot.
About the only time I deliberately choose a lens for it's OOFA is when I'm shooting sports with a long lens. My 500mm Minolta f8 mirror lens is handy but on bright days, it's OOFA is the unusual looking doughnut shape. That can be distracting so, in those cases, I'll sacrifice 100mm and use my Minolta 100-400mm zoom which has a wider aperture as a bonus.
Outside of 35mm, most systems don't offer lenses with different OOFA I love my Fujica G690 and have 4 lenses for it: 50mm, 65mm, 100mm and 180mm. Fuji only made one other lens for it, the 150mm, and no alt brand ever made a lens for it. However, that doesn't matter; it creates stunning images if and when my brain creates them first.
I'd never pay OTT prices for an OOFA aperture unless the glass and build itself were the reason for my purchase (ie. Zeiss from Sony digital fits my A7 and I have two). So for the finale: I shoot great images sometimes but they are not great images because of the OOFA, they are great images because my mind saw something I could 'exploit' by composing and exposing the shot in a creative way.

 

[Derrel]

The word bokeh was introduced to English language speakers in some articles in the early 1990s , published by Mike Johnston, who was then the editor-in-chief of Darkroom Techniques magazine. Boke is a Japanese word , and he added the h at the end to avoid mispronunciation, so as to avoid people saying boke that rhymes with poke... that's not the way to pronounce the word. It does not rhyme with poke. So yes, the word is relatively new to us in the West, and it was not heard back in the day.

Johnston currently publishes The Online Photographer blog, and a few years ago he did about 10 days' worth of discussion of the term bokeh and where it comes from and what it is, ETC.

 

[Designer]

I think considering the aesthetics of the blur is a worthwhile action, and if you start to analyze the image with any objectivity, you might see that some blur is smooth and peaceful, while other blur is jarring and distracting.

Your choice, but I prefer smooth.

 

[Derrel]

The bokeh craze that smoke665 was referring to is not, in my opinion, a real appreciation of the true meaning of bokeh.

 

[Bollygum]

I think bokeh is just fine. Some people know how to use it well and others don't. Some people are good photographers and some are not. In my experience it takes a good lens to get good bokeh. By good that usually means expensive.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

So yes, the word is relatively new to us in the West, and it was not heard back in the day.

Johnston currently publishes The Online Photographer blog, and a few years ago he did about 10 days' worth of discussion of the term bokeh and where it comes from and what it is, ETC.

No, the word was not known back in the day but Bokeh has been, being used since cameras where invented, and in Japan a 1000 years before that in woodcuts.
But back in the day the f64 gang was quite aware of it, for the very reason they were using f64!
And I believe it's Johnston or one of his colleagues that keeps a pretty good list of lenses that have very favorable Bokeh characteristics.
John

 

[smoke665]

The bokeh craze that smoke665 was referring to is not, in my opinion, a real appreciation of the true meaning of bokeh.

Bingo! Most of which is created post and ends up looking like a sharp edge cutout slapped in the middle of a puddle of mush.

. In my experience it takes a good lens to get good bokeh. By good that usually means expensive.

Sometimes but not always the case. One of the best lenses I have for soft creamy OOF and beautiful round Bokeh Balls is an old thrift store find that I paid $30 for.

 

[SquarePeg]

The bokeh craze that smoke665 was referring to is not, in my opinion, a real appreciation of the true meaning of bokeh.

Bingo! Most of which is created post and ends up looking like a sharp edge cutout slapped in the middle of a puddle of mush.

. In my experience it takes a good lens to get good bokeh. By good that usually means expensive.

Sometimes but not always the case. One of the best lenses I have for soft creamy OOF and beautiful round Bokeh Balls is an old thrift store find that I paid $30 for.

I’m curious where you’re seeing all this fake blur that you’ve mentioned a few times? I follow a lot of photographers that I like on Instagram and Flickr and I am in several Facebook photo groups and I don’t see a lot of that. Maybe you need to unfollow the hacks and up your feed quality.

 

[smoke665]

I’m curious where you’re seeing all this fake blur that you’ve mentioned a few times? I follow a lot of photographers that I like on Instagram and Flickr and I am in several Facebook photo groups and I don’t see a lot of that. Maybe you need to unfollow the hacks and up your feed quality.

I see it come up on various sites from FB pages, to other forums, to actual prints. We seem to have an abundance of wanna be photographers doing cut rate work in our area.