Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/01/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I don't understand the big problem with this. Like i said yesterday Bokeh is the quality of the out of focus image. Usually the background. It is not a newly discovered metaphysical phenomenon that you have to think happy thoughts to see. It is a simple fact of lens life. Unless you shoot everything at f16 with a wide angle lens not all of your image is going to be in focus. When we look at the picture we are mainly of course interested in the sharp foreground. But the blurry bunchy background is certainly there and it is far from probable that it can be ignored. Not that it needs to be dwelled on though. But it is to me an obvious indicator of a less well designed lens. A better designed lens will have a smoother look to the way the image breaks apart when it falls out of focus. A worse designed lens will give a bunchy distorted quality to that out of focus background image. Now it is surprising that no one thought twice about the quality of their out of focus backgrounds all this time until quite recently. Most of us more experienced shooters and lens testers did not have this in our frame of reference. It was just not a consideration. But now it has been brought to our attention. And you could say we were caught with our pants down but many of us don't feel threatened by it because we are not the only ones who missed it. It's not a Leica phenomena as Mister Ting suggests. Part of some Leica hype. It's just a major component of what makes ANY lens worthy of use or non use. Especially to people who tend to shoot wide open a good deal of the time. The majority of your image is out of focus only a small area is sharp. Why would you ignore the quality of the major area of your image? A few years ago from what i can gather both Ted and Erwin did not have this concept as part of there spheres of reference... ...The quality of the out of focus image. But these guys from there separate spheres of reference both have this concept incorporated into their thinking NOW. To me it's a Gestalt thing. A figure-ground thing. There ain't no figure with out there being a ground. Sometimes you have to pay attention to the ground. Mark Rabiner Portland, Oregon USA http://www.markrabiner.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html