When Will The Bokeh Craze End

[Derrel]

I have not really seen all that much objectionable fake background blur. There have been developed some very well understood techniques to make it look quite believable within the last few years. Even Kirk Tuck,well- known Austin,Texas commercial people photographer and videographer has begun doing it with his micro four-thirds camera systems

 

[Sharpshooterr]

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.

So what if people want to use fake blur???
I’m sure a lot of the fake blur is BETTER than the real blur we see created by cheap cameras with CHEAP lenses and photographers that don’t know how to use them.
Photography became almost entirely fake with the advent of Photoshop and few are complaining. In fact photographers are encouraged to doctor up their crappy snap shots in PS, to make them good!
If those wanna-be cut-raters are taking your work, time to re-evaluate just how viable photography is as a profession. Time to move into a genre where the cut-raters are not! An area so DIFFICULT and too knowledge or equipment heavy to be filled with cut-raters!!!
John

 

[Lonnie1212]

I think Bokeh may matter more to those interested in portraits or photographing people in general. It never really appealed to me. There is a soft background setting on my Nikon D3200. It does perfectly well for my bokeh curiosity.

 

[smoke665]

@Sharpshooterr after 11 pages and over 3600 views apparently it's an issue with strong opinions for and against. I would disagree that "bad" blur created post is no worse then anything created in a cheap camera or lens. Theres is no natural transition and to me it's like the screech of chalk on a chalkboard but hey, to each his own.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

I think Bokeh may matter more to those interested in portraits or photographing people in general. It never really appealed to me. There is a soft background setting on my Nikon D3200. It does perfectly well for my bokeh curiosity.

Lonnie, you think?
Maybe it’s just your inexperience coming through!?
I’ll just speak for myself but I use bokeh/OOF all the time when shooting sports. I use it when shooting nature all the time too. I use it when shooting street and very selectively when I shoot landscaps, especially micro landscapes.
I also shoot a lot of people. Both studio and location. In fact often more people than anything else and for people is when I use it the least!!! I love an extremely crisp, sharp portrait, front to back.
I’m pretty darned sure I’m not alone here on FM on this but like you I’m new here so don’t want to generalize.
In fact experienced shooters, especially pros use bokeh/OOF anytime they deem it will improve an image or just to get a certain look!
But it should be a conscious choice not a serendipitous accident!
John

 

[star camera company]

Bokeh, from a Holmes Booth and Haydens half plate petzval lens, full open f 3.6. Collodion negative contact print 1/2 Plate. This is that “swirl” everyone chases.

 

[Derrel]

My first ever" good camera" was a Russian-made SLR, the Cosmorex SE, which was a rebadged of the Zenit B.

It had a 58 mm F / 2 Auto Cosmogon, which had Fairly swirly bokeh. The lens was a russian-made copy of a lens design that is well known for its swirly bokeh. At the time I was using the camera and lens I was unaware of background rendering, since I was 12 or 13 years old, and the term bokeh was about 20 years or so in the future.

The lens is in m42 thread mount oh, so I suppose I could use it on one of my older Canon digital single-lens reflexes...

 

[Lonnie1212]

I think Bokeh may matter more to those interested in portraits or photographing people in general. It never really appealed to me. There is a soft background setting on my Nikon D3200. It does perfectly well for my bokeh curiosity.

Lonnie, you think?
Maybe it’s just your inexperience coming through!?
I’ll just speak for myself but I use bokeh/OOF all the time when shooting sports. I use it when shooting nature all the time too. I use it when shooting street and very selectively when I shoot landscaps, especially micro landscapes.
I also shoot a lot of people. Both studio and location. In fact often more people than anything else and for people is when I use it the least!!! I love an extremely crisp, sharp portrait, front to back.
I’m pretty darned sure I’m not alone here on FM on this but like you I’m new here so don’t want to generalize.
In fact experienced shooters, especially pros use bokeh/OOF anytime they deem it will improve an image or just to get a certain look!
But it should be a conscious choice not a serendipitous accident!
John

The bokeh issue has it's place in photography. And certainly there are those with more knowledge and experience than I have. There are times when I look to have bokeh. But I am not looking to have better bokeh and pursuing the issue. Will continue to read about the opinions and experiences of others. There may come a time when I really want it.

 

[SquarePeg]

Of all my lenses, and at this point I’m overstocked, the 60mm has the “best” bokeh. It’s dreamy and I love it. Even though the 60 is difficult to auto focus in low light/low contrast, and slower to auto focus in good conditions than all of my other lenses, I would never give it up.

If you’re a technical shooter who is looking to be very by the book, you may not care about bokeh or more accurately the quality of the bokeh, but I’d you’re interested in artsy photos, it’s important.

 

[star camera company]

When I was experimenting with various Leitz lenses in my UR Leica, I got a 50mm Leitz Milar f 4.5. It fit the camera but Yikes the images floored me with just how awful they were! King of Buukaay? Nah... no need for Any images like these! The 42 mm Summar was found to make perfect images

 

[limr]

View attachment 183675 Bokeh, from a Holmes Booth and Haydens half plate petzval lens, full open f 3.6. Collodion negative contact print 1/2 Plate. This is that “swirl” everyone chases.

I do love me some swirly Petzval bokeh

 

[TWX]

For me, the control of depth-of-field is predominately about making my subject clear to the observer. The aesthetic quality of bokeh isn't unimportant, but it is definitely secondary to the subject of the picture, even for artsy-fartsy pictures like when I go out in the rose garden to play with light and shadow in the late afternoon.

I bought the camera for taking pictures of my family, and most of my pictures are candids or semi-candid snaps of people. Proper depth of field is the difference between a busy photo that is glossed-over in an old photo book and a great picture that I want to go back and look at again and again, especially in real-world settings where the surrounding view is busy or otherwise congested.

Consider the Mona Lisa. Ms. Lisa is what we're looking at, not the background around her. I think it's predominately oranges and browns but I couldn't even tell you. To me, that's what bokeh is, it's job is to not distract from the subject, it's simply necessary, and it takes pretty bad bokeh to make it really detract.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

I think Bokeh may matter more to those interested in portraits or photographing people in general. It never really appealed to me. There is a soft background setting on my Nikon D3200. It does perfectly well for my bokeh curiosity.

Lonnie, you think?
Maybe it’s just your inexperience coming through!?
I’ll just speak for myself but I use bokeh/OOF all the time when shooting sports. I use it when shooting nature all the time too. I use it when shooting street and very selectively when I shoot landscaps, especially micro landscapes.
I also shoot a lot of people. Both studio and location. In fact often more people than anything else and for people is when I use it the least!!! I love an extremely crisp, sharp portrait, front to back.
I’m pretty darned sure I’m not alone here on FM on this but like you I’m new here so don’t want to generalize.
In fact experienced shooters, especially pros use bokeh/OOF anytime they deem it will improve an image or just to get a certain look!
But it should be a conscious choice not a serendipitous accident!
John

The bokeh issue has it's place in photography. And certainly there are those with more knowledge and experience than I have. There are times when I look to have bokeh. But I am not looking to have better bokeh and pursuing the issue. Will continue to read about the opinions and experiences of others. There may come a time when I really want it.

Yes, I agree, bokeh definitely has a place in photography. My issue was only that you suggested it was important mostly to portrait or people photography. My point was that it can be a very valuable tool both aesthetically and purposely in every genre of photography, and equally.
For someone to ask when the bokeh craze will end, that person is either very naive about photography or they were just trolling!
But many of us DO know when the bokeh craze will end....., it will end when this photography craze ends!!! LoL
SS

 

[smoke665]

@sharpshooter I very much resent your comments, as I can assure you, that I am neither naive or trolling in my OP. Your egotistical and arrogant attitude on my comments and others shows a lack of tolerance and unwiilingness to understand other viewpoints. My experience dates back 50 years, covering newspaper, forensics, legal, individuals and business, so this isnt my first rodeo.

Maybe if you'd have actually read some of my posts in the previous pages, instead of being so quick to insert your pompous opinions, you would have realized that I'm not against the use of Bokeh as a creative element. Did you actually read the OP, here's a quote from it " When used in the right situations it can be gorgeous, and can enhance an image", and in case you missed an earlier statement I still say fake blur added post by an inexperienced person looks like crap. Usually when that happens its because the photographer was either to "naieve" or "inexperienced" to take the time to be aware of their surroundings, and to consider all elements of the composition before they snapped the shutter.

Maybe you should actually read through the comments by others before posting, otherwise you come off looking like the troll.

 

[SquarePeg]

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