©2008 Jason Ball
Perfect for a greetings card – one of the photographs at my new Zenfolio site, in a section called Poppyfield Gallery. An excellent lens, the professional Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM, enabled me to get a strong bokeh.
What is bokeh? Sounds Japanese, I thought, and yes, apparently it is the Japanese word for ‘blur’, says the Silverbased blog. I agree with the writer, it’s important not to think of this word as applicable to all blurring! Ronnie Henry gives us a concise definition.
A photographer can utilise Depth of Field creatively to reduce the prominence of background detail and emphasise the foreground parts of the picture. As you can see, I’ve ‘isolated’ this purple poppy within the image. (The flower stands out, and you don’t see what else is in the garden.) Bokeh, I would say, refers to what you have done with the off-focus background. Strong bokeh creates a pleasant effect, like a soft haze.
Bokeh is a stationary blur which is valuable, in a technical sense, to the photographer. It’s usually deliberate rather than accidental, e.g. due to movement or a failure to focus. I’m not saying accidental blur has no place! Sometimes accidents in photography give amazing results that otherwise you’d never see.
Pull the aperture wide open and you’re more likely to get a strong bokeh. So a lens with a big aperture – such as f1.4 or f2.8 – is what you want if you’re after this kind of result.
Examples-i-like:
pop orchid
bit daisy
shackford softness
