There's been a lot of discussion on what it looks like, what is good, what is bad, which lenses, which brands. But when do you make use bokeh and why? I seen a few pictures on this forum and others where the subject of the picture seems to be >>I have this lens and look,I can make almost everything blurry<<. One of the reasons, and there are a few, that I came to Leica after 25 years with a N-F2AS, is for the SHARP lenses! I want my subjects sharp, with great color, contrast, etc. Leica bokeh lets me isolate the subject without calling attention to the oof areas. But I don't think I want someone looking at my photos and saying, Hey great Bokeh!

By the way, let me thank everyone on this forum for all the great posts. I have been considering the Leica system for the last six months. I discovered your forum 4 months ago and read every single thread obsessively. You helped me decide on a classic M6, 35 non-asph summicron, 50 pre-latest summicron, and latest 90 elmarit. I bought them 8 weeks ago. Your collective wisdom gave me the wherewithal to convince my wonderful spouse to not kill me until I have enjoyed my new toys for at least a while. Should I survive, my next purchase will be a scanner so I can share my shots. Sadly, not for some months nor before some fancy baubles for the lady. -Hil

-- Hil (hegomez@aol.com), December 01, 2001

Answers

Hil; I agree with you about the importance of sharpness in a lens, but unless you do pictures with every thing in sharp focus and at small f stops, you will eventualy deal with out of focus areas in your pictures; and i belive those can be a great way to enance the sharpness of the focus areas ( agains a blure background), and having an out of focus area where you can trace curvature of field and others averations can be disapointed againt a regular out of focus image in the entire field, with no double images and no traces of coma etc.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), December 01, 2001.

Mmm. I think I understand better: Good bokeh renders oof areas pleasingly, free of distortion, harsh shapes and patterns. I think I got confused seeing shots of selectively focused subjects with wide- open ultrafasts in broad daylight. Caused me vertigo. If that were bokeh, I wouldn't want it. -Hil

-- Hil (hegomez@aol.com), December 01, 2001.

(As usual I took so long writing this that Roberto came up with an excellent summary while I was posting. But here are my thoughts anyway)

Hil: Unless you are using a 21mm lens at f/16 (or somthing similar) or shooting flat subjects where everything is roughly the same distance from the lens, SOME part of the picture will be out of focus.

In some cases this is just a fact of photographic life (e.g. documentary shooting with a 90 f/2 in low light) - in other cases it is something a creative photographer uses, to separate a subject from the background, or to emphasize the feeling of the light or mood.

IF something is going to be out of focus, then the question arises - does it detract (or distract) from the main (sharp) subject, or enhance and support it (or at least remain neutral)?

People may never look at your pictures (or mine) and say 'great bokeh!' But - as demonstrated in the recent thread about "Autumn colors at wide apertures" - if the bokeh gets so squirrely that it starts distracting people and getting comments, then you have a problem!

Two secondary points:

1) Human vision is sharp (if at all) over a very small part of the field of view - look three inches over to the right or left and you won't be able to read these words anymore. Most of what is in front of our eyes, except what we are concentrating on, is fuzzy.

I like to USE the sharpness AND the bokeh of Leica lenses to recreate this spatial feeling in the final photograph (by shooting a lot at f/ 2). In addition to sharpness Leica lenses also have a reputation for giving a "3D" effect, and I think part of this reputation comes from this ability to reproduce a subject the way the human eye would see it if the subject itself were in front of you, instead of a 2D reproduction.

2) The real joke, of course, is that with rangefinders we are using a camera system that makes it IMPOSSIBLE for us to see how the unfocused parts of the picture will look - through the M viewfinder EVERYTHING looks sharp. To make use of out-of-focus/in-focus contrasts, we have to know our lenses so well that we can imagine (or in my case, more often just have faith in) how the final image will turn out. Which leads to some of the discussion about these aspects as we build up the knowledge base.

Keep taking those sharp pictures - and post some once you get your scanner!

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), December 01, 2001.

Andy: Then it comes down to what we want to do with our subject. Suppose we do want to create this 3D effect, using the knowledge that what we see sharply is what we look at and not what is off to the side. With a wide aperature we isolate the subject and let the viewer know that that is what we want her to see.

But knowing that what we look at directly is all that is in focus, do we not get the same effect looking at an enlargement that is completely in sharp focus? Those details in the picture we are not looking at are not in focus, sharp as they may be. Depends on what we want our viewer to see.

Sorry, I am sounding tedious to myself. I'll get some sleep.

-- Hil (hegomez@aol.com), December 01, 2001.

"But knowing that what we look at directly is all that is in focus, do we not get the same effect looking at an enlargement that is completely in sharp focus?"

No. Looking at a photograph is very different than looking at the subject in real life. (Time to pull out that Winogrand quote: "The photograph isn't what was photographed. It's something else. It's a new fact.")

I'm too sleepy myself right now to attempt a long, coherent explanation regarding this point, so let me suggest an exercise that will demonstrate very clearly that you don't get the same effect: Take a few pictures of the same subject with the same framing, but take one with the aperture as wide as possible (providing the least DOF), another with as small as conditions allow (providing the most DOF), and another in between. Do it for several subjects in several different environments. Nearby subjects will illustrate the point most clearly because they will generally result in the most noticeable differences in DOF. Compare the pictures.

Controlling the degree of background/foreground blut is not only a tool for directing the viewer to the subject (there are other ways to do that), it also allows you to control the amount of contextual information (and its importance) in the photo. This can have a dramatic effect on the impact of the photo.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), December 01, 2001.

There is alot of debate as to whether or not the shape of the diaphram opening contributes to the "bokeh" of an image or not. 2 years ago I did my annual Christmas street shoot in Old Montreal with a Hasselblad 500 C/M and 80 2.8 Planar. What I noticed in one of my shots was that point light sources (ie streetlamps) that were OOF @ F4 were rendered as distinct polygons. I guess this has to do with the aperture opening @ F4. So now I'm wondering about the more "complex" bokeh of the latest ASPH lenses as opposed to the earlier non-ASPH. I noticed that Leica has gone to fewer diaphram blades in the 35 F2 ASPH compared to my previous gen 35 Cron. Could this be a reason that the older lens has more pleasing bokeh or does it have more to do with the compromises made to create a lens with perfect corner-to-corner sharpness (compared to Mandler's original mandate?).

Not that I'll change lenses or anything... just curious.

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), December 01, 2001.

Hil, let me just give you a good example (at least I think so, and I didn't take the shot). There is a famous portrait of Thomas Mann sitting at his desk in the library and behind him a lot of books. His face is "of course" nice and sharp, but the books aren't. The bokeh is (for my taste) essential and perfect here, because the books are not at all as sharp as his face (which of course is the main importance here), but at the same time the books are not so blurred or fuzzy that you couldn't even see that they are books (which of course does still play a big role here).

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), December 01, 2001.

Hil -

I think you're headed in the right direction with your thinking about bokeh. It's probably more productive to think in terms of how to use depth of field to augment the intentional composition and the "message" of your images, and simply trust in the fact that your Leica lenses will be more likely to treat the OOF areas with care and subtlety than some other camera system would.

In this respect, I think bokeh is somewhat similar to a lady's perfume. Ideally, the perfume becomes part of the "MmmmMmm" of her personna, rather than being noticed on its own. Bad bokeh would be like K-Mart perfume - priced right (when the blue light is on), but lacking in subtlety. In contrast, the conscious use of depth of field as a compositional tool might be parallel to the lady's choice of whether to wear perfume or not.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), December 01, 2001.

Hil:

You essentially answered your question in your own post: >Leica bokeh lets me isolate the subject without calling attention to the oof areas.< I think it might be a bit more accurate if you were to add that OOF areas appear very smooth, as does the transition into them from the sharp ares, thus keeping the OOF areas "pleasantly non- dominant".

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 01, 2001.

Jack-

exactly - perfect explained as I see it...

-- steve jones (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), December 01, 2001.

The issue of bokeh is very complicated at best, as all the postings on that subject allude to. In my experience, certain lenses do not always "have good bokeh", but under certain circumstances, including f stop choice, point of focus, and lighting conditions, some magic can occur to create a backround that is perfect in its support for the main subject. Of course, you can't see any of this through the finder with a Leica M, so with all the variables involved in the equation, dumb luck is at play as well.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 01, 2001.

Can I give you a hint about a bauble for the beautiful lady? I used this one myself and it worked wonders. A few years back Leica came out with three very nice, semi-expensive watches (in the price range of a good Seiko). A chronometer, a mens, and a VERY nice ladies watch. Gold plate, neat strap, a great dress watch that says simply LEICA on the face. A good ETA selfwinding mechanical movement. It's placate the lady (somewhat), and you still get to support Leica. A win-win situation ;-)

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), December 01, 2001.

Good point, Andrew:

under certain circumstances, including f stop choice, point of focus, and lighting conditions, some magic can occur to create a backround that is perfect in its support for the main subject



Antoine Jacoud, Swiss playwright and screenwriter. M6 TTL, 50 cron, f 2.8. © Lutz Konermann



Terry Hayes, Australian screenwriter. M6 TTL, 75 lux (aka KOB, "King Of Bokeh"), f 2.8. © Lutz Konermann

Cheers.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), December 02, 2001.

Thanks, everyone, esp. Andy, Mike, Lutz. Pictures are worth a thousand words. -Hil

-- Hil (hegomez@agere.com), December 03, 2001.