Bokeh Or Not Bokeh – That Is The Question

Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of ghastly backdrops or to open up a stop and smoosh it all out of existence.

Also whether ’tis necessary to use a Japanese word that means shakiness to try to describe something that need not be shaky at all or to use good old-fashioned English and call it out-of-focus.

I would go on about to sleep, perchance to dream but that generally involves the damned cat jumping on your crotch as he claws his way onto the bed and if you are not prepared for it you won’t be dreaming…

The out of focus areas ( I decided.) can be sharp or dull, blotchy or smooth, and a great many words are now expended in the photography press dealing with this business. It never used to be in the days of Perutz and pterydactyls – we just concentrated in getting the subject lit and in focus and did not have the vapours – Japanese or otherwise – about the bits behind. Those of us lucky to have lenses that opened up wider than f4 could please ourselves anyway.

I never saw a great photograph lose out because the background was too sharp unless the subject was standing in front of a telegraph pole. On the other hand I have seen many a promising colour portrait spoiled by losing all focus on the nose or hair – more or less balancing a set of lips and eyes in between two blobs of undistinguished pink. You can bokeh something into the bin.

The Nikon and Canon companies have made complex lenses for their film and DSLR cameras that have something known as “selective defocus” – an extra adjustment ring that fiddles with the out-of-focus areas while leaving the focused bits untouched. These lenses are  used by people who do not know how to use them and it shows. They are the modern equivalent of the Rodenstock Imagon*- a lens that challenges the fabric of the universe. So far the fabric has moth holes.

• I own one and I do not know how to use it. It uses me.