Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/21
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>I'm sure many newcomers have asked this before, but since i've joined I
>have seen postings mentioning "bokeh" but no explanation as to what it
>is. I am curious... is this some kind of lens characteristic? And what
>does it mean in terms of picture quality? Thanks in advance to anyone
>who can enlighten me...
Bokeh is a Japanese term for describing the qualities of the out of focus
portions of a photograph. Lenses render these out of focus regions
differently, and there are many terms in Japanese for the differences.
In practice I find that Bokeh is important in preserving the appeal of
images that have a shallow depth of field. The worst Bokeh that I've ever
seen was on a Nikkor AF 50 f/1.4 lens that I used to own. The background at
wide apertures was very distracting: lines were doubled and the edges of
objects were harshly blurred instead of softly blurred. Leica lenses tend
to render the out-focus-areas as pleasantly blurred. Such a rendering keeps
the eye drawn to the subject without distraction. I had noticed this before
I discovered the word Bokeh in the articles written in Photo Techniques
last year. That the Japanese had a word for it reassured me that I wasn't
crazy in thinking that this effect was very important in producing
asthetically appealing photographs.
Some folks on the list think that Bokeh is irrelevant. I think that a good
Bokeh is one of the most desireable qualities of a lens that you will use
at wide apertures, especially for portraits. The 90/2.8 Elmarit-M has a
beautiful Bokeh.
- -Charlie
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Charles E. Dunlap
Earth Sciences Department
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Tel.: (408) 459-5228 Fax.: (408) 459-3074
mailto:cdunlap@es.ucsc.edu
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