To me, this photo is definitely bokeh, lev. And a beauty!
Bokeh as I understand it, isn't just shallow dof; it is shallow dof with light behind, doing groovy things. So your photo is a good example. Note how undefined the light sources are back there. That's what is wanted, I think.
To my way of thinking, "bokeh" is more than just shallow DOF. It's a quality of luminance and serenity, a very zen sort of thing. The pic of "ribbons" in the wind below is very good "active" bokeh to my eye. The shot of the football players is less succesful as a bokeh, to my way of thinking.
This is a concept I work with a LOT in my own work. Unfortunately, I mostly do it with spring and autumn light and colors. I am gonna be hard-pressed to attack this in the dead of winter, but I suppose that's all to the good.
I think we need a moment of silence for those with point-and-shoot digicams -- we basically left them out of this one.
On the "other hand", having just bought a Canon S1 in addition to my dRebel, I have to say that I forgot how nice it is to have such incredible depth of field at almost all settings (at least since my G2 died). It seems that it's worth carrying in addition to the dRebel not only as a light alternative to a heavy zoom lens, but also as a tool to get deep depth of field at non-wide angle focal lengths (the SLRs do well already when you are using wide angle).
Shallow DOF is generally inseparable from the bokeh it causes in the background. So, the answer is 'both'. And to achieve the former, one needs to use the latter, keeping in mind that different lenses produce bokeh of different prettiness. Check out ken rockwell's mini article on bokeh at kenrockwell.com.
Anyone with access to photoshop can make bokeh, within the advanced editing rules. Critical control of DOF at the camera is definitely a plus, but critical control of ANYTHING at the camera is always better than any but the luckiest point-and-shoot results.
With all due respect, i don't think chromatic effects of a single element lens can be reproduced precisely in photoshop... I know this statement may cause a mini war on the subject, but still. =)
I have a couple of shots that may be a good illustration of extreme bokeh, imho:
But for those who want to do it in the camera, you can take advantage of a close up lens attachment to get shallow depth of field, as I did here in the Shallow DOF challenge with my G2:
(And perhaps that's what Welland did below as well?)
But for those who want to do it in the camera, you can take advantage of a close up lens attachment to get shallow depth of field, as I did here in the Shallow DOF challenge with my G2:
(And perhaps that's what Welland did below as well?)
Just f2.0 in macro mode up to the tank. I should get some closeup filters though.
According to some, "bokeh" is a technical description of a class of artefacts generated by spherical aberrations in a given lens. "Bad" bokeh, by this definition, would be the donut shapes of out of focus specular highlights generated by a mirror telephoto lens, to give one example.
To some of us, "bokeh" means working with blurred fields in an image, usually behind the subject, and usually with the subject itself being quite sharp and detailed in contrast. So in those terms, some of the images below more qualify as "soft focus" than as bokeh.
Here are some more examples, more or less at random, from my files, going back 4 years to when I first started playing with this. The two leaf pictures are photoshopped extensively. The backgrounds, of course, were out of focus to begin with, but they had too much definition even so for the effect I was seeking. The "weeping twig" photo is not manipulated with blur filters; it;s the way the lens saw it.
For whatever that's worth. I don't have a "patent" on this or a "right" answer to the challenge, this is just how I see it.
i never really knew precisely what bokeh meant--but i figured i would know it when i saw it. i always thought it had something to do with the OOF background--made more easily recognisible by OOF points of light. so i had that concept in mind when i made my broken shot--concentrating as much on the subtle sunlight coming through the tree as the front lighting, because i had the thought that it made nice bokeh--and made the background more interesting. but not being completely clear on the definition--i'm not sure if this really fits or not. :)
Alecia, your shot fits, it is just a word for the quality of that part of an image.
I didn't see if anyone put this link up; if your a bit of a gear head check it out, it may be a little heavy for someone who's not into the techno of photo, but more a little more fuel to the fire:
Just to continue my paranoia about my 70-200, is it possible for the lens to appear to be working properly but have what looks like bad bokeh? I have a few shots where the oof areas look terrible. Can't post any examples now, will do tomorrow. More curious than anything b/c I bought the lens partly for its supposed awesome bokeh.
Ok, so I took another look at the shot I'm worried about on my cam (not at home and can't upload shots to a computer) of a backlit birds nest with branches against a bright overcast sky. It looks like the bokeh I don't like (some horrible doubling of branches) might be the intersection of near and far oof branches that are overlapping in the frame. Is that a common bad-bokeh maker?
So wait, the background of a Bokeh picture (sounds like boa constrictor, huh?) is blurry, that much is clear (pun intended), but I got the sense that the reverse can also be true--though I can't think of a situation where it would enhance the photo off the top of my head. That is:
It is legal/true to Bokeh that the foreground can be blurry and the background sharp?
That would mean that the foreground is not really the subject, but does what I'm asking make sense?
Sure. That makes sense, Nova. The way I understand it, the challenge is about working sharp elements and extremely soft elements together so the one enhances the other. To my way of thinking, if all the framers of the challenge had wanted was people paying close attention to the use of out-of-focus lens artefacts, they'd have made it a basic editing challenge. Any number of photographers work with what I would consider "bokeh" in the artistic sens, the interplay of blur and sharpness. It wouldn't matter, from a definition point of view, where the blur was.
That said, it's damned difficult to blur foregrounds into sharp backgrounds and have it work. I've tried...
For me, the challenge of this kind of stuff is to create a sort of "hyper-realism" navigating or protruding above/in front of fields of soft, gauzy light or palpable, velvety darkness. But that's just my take on it. I seem to be in a minority.
I'm throwing in an example of mine since I feel like it is a good demonstration of how bokeh can be used to enhance the main subject (and I can't use the photo again anyway).
Here the colors from the background compliment the subject's colors. The viewer doesn't need to see what the subject is; just what color it is. The bokeh here is desired because it creates a smooth, creamy, blurred background against which the subject stands out.
EDIT: heck, I'm so excited about this challenge I threw in two other examples of shallow depth of field which demonstrates the effects of the bokeh of a lens.
