Strange bokeh (Page 2): for starters, post the original image, uncrossed, use "store original" and upload the RAW file, if you do not have the RAW, the SOC jpeg.

sergiohm

for starters, post the original image, uncrossed, use "store original" and upload the RAW file, if you do not have the RAW, the SOC jpeg.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

moosus wrote:

I recently bought a new Nikon 28-300mm 1:3.5-5.6 G... (show quote)

Were you shooting through a window?

Ched49 Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.

It could be heat ripples or the bird entered the twilight zone.

HOHIMER

Looks like the edge of the Outer Event Horizon to me. :-)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Aliens?

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

There ain't nothin' wrong with your lens! Excuse the double negative in my faulty grammar but reads TIMMERS post again and learn something.

This "bokeh" thing has become a misunderstood buzzword. So let's break it down to easily understood mechanics. So...you photographed a bird with a long lens at a fairly wide aperture- the bird is sharp and the background and FOREGROUND are out of focus. The out of focus background is comprised of little round blobs of light usually caused by light passing through things like tree branches and transilluminated foliage. The blobs are usually round and that is because they take on the shape of the aperture or the lens barrel- even if the diaphragm is wide open. Anything else that is placed in the light path, usually in front of the lens and remains out of focus will alter the shape of the blobs. Think of it as changing the shape of the aperture, especially if it is relatively close to the lens. Remember the objects in the foreground, when there is a minimal depth of field are ALSO out of focus so they are not defined in your image but they influence the shape of the blobs of light in the background.

So...the so-called bokeh is not magically produced by a special lens or one that is said to have especially good bokeh- and it won't always be uniform unless there is no foreground interference. Some lenses may have a more appealing effect to some photographers because they have more diaphragm blades, a unique aperture shape or are very fast and have an especially low f/stop such as f/1.0 or f/.95 where the depth of field is extremely shallow and the "bokeh" readily appears even at a shorter distance between the subject and the background.

Do a simple experiment to prove my point. Focus on an object, set a longer focal length, and a wide aperture, and make certain the background is well out of focus and illuminate as I have described. Get a thin dark object like a black pencil, a thin twig or a thin black cable tie and place in front of the lens in a diagonal fashion. Observe the blobs carefully and you will notice that there is a small diagonal line passing through the diameter of the "circle.". If you were to place a number of thin objects in front of the lens- odd shapes and direction, all kinds of different shape and pattern would occur in the blobs and some of them would become "misshapen"!

When you shot that bird, my money's on the probability that you shot through branches, twigs and other tree parts and that is a perfectly natural and pleasing effect. I purposely do that all the time when I am shooting portraits and other subjects where I want to get away for the usual effect, create a romantic or ethereal mood or a natural or colorful. vignette. Oftentimes I purposely shoot through the foliage, hedges, brush, high grass and I even have an old skylight filter with a few strips of black pinstripe tape just in cases there is nothing to shoot through.

There have been numerous "arguments" on this forum where folks are trying to define "bokeh"! It is simply a product of depth of field usage, selective focus techniques, and the photographs taste and visions. It can be smooth, blobs, or different lines or patterns. It can be out of focus foreground framing.

My general advice to many folks here on the HOG is to stop reading all the advertising and marketing propaganda and worrying about expensive lenses trademarked as "Art". The art is in knowing how to manipulate the optics. Google Mr. Fibonacci instead of Mr. Sigma or Mr. Zeiss! When you are out shooting, observe the effect at various focal lengths, apertures, and relative subject/background/foreground distances.

Oh, sorry for the omission of all the scholarly technical/optical terminology- I am sure "blobs" is not in the glossary and besides, I always found the term "circles of confusion" kinda CONFUSING!

ChristianHJensen

moosus wrote:

I recently bought a new Nikon 28-300mm 1:3.5-5.6 G... (show quote)

Was it windy? What was your shutter speed?

Hawkowl Loc: Ithaca, NY

jerryc41 wrote:

Or a mini black hole. : )

Or a ripple in time!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Timmers wrote:

What follows is why so many on the Hog Forum regard me as a jerk. It does not bother me one bit. When one is truly a master of your discipline then one learns to deal with the envious regards from the lesser practitioners in ones field.

The effect is generally in the realms of that category of what you are calling bokeh, but it is merely an effect and not the 'reason' for what you are seeing. There is nothing malfunctioning with your lens that this image is displaying.

Now the boring didactic part of this story/explanation. Everyone has heard of the golden means, also the Fibonacci principle. That Fibonacci principle is attributed to an Italian story about I guy who championed the principle of what is also referred to as the golden means. Essentially the golden means is a FOUNDATION of the active principle that governs the way our world works. The growth, the PATTERN of that growth in the natural world follows this interesting pattern. The way leaves grow on a stem and branch from weeds to giant elm trees, that pattern is followed. It is encoded in the life structure from a single leaf and the spiral of a snails shell. So there is an inherent pattern created by the plants leaves and the pattern you are seeing in this display, be it called bokeh or golden means it is the outcome of the inherent pattern that leaves exhibit as they break up the beams of light flowing through the tree's leaf pattern.

An additional didactic reference for this can be found by looking up a rather unique photographic lens made by Schneider called the Imagon. To achieve the 'soft focus' effects of the Imagon a device is installed in the front of the lens called an 'airy diffusion disk'. This is the part of the Imagon lens that creates effects like those you see in your image sun light through the tree's levees. In some images where a direct light source is shown in the photograph, the airy diffusion disk may show as a cluster of tiny points of light as seen as circles if the lens disk is dialed fully open or as partial crescents if closed down.

I found several images associated with the Imagon lens. The first shows the effect in the Christmas tree lights, especially to the right of the image. The second image shows the extreme effect most call bokeh and are the repeating pattern of diffraction with interference of light waves generated by the shaping pattern by a simple lens. The third images shows the Imagon airy diffusion disk and the light pattern it generates when in use. The last image is of an Imagon lens with it's airy diffusion discs.

To end this, the pattern you are seeing is the natural patterning of sunlight as it passes through leaves that interfere with that light and are creating a 'pattern' that is inherently made up of a pattern that you are seeing based on the golden means. Your natural and biological response to this pattern is built into the biological structure of your own body. Congratulation! You are a living being who for a moment has connected to the natural structure of the world in which you are part! I know, way to Pagan for the Hog! LOL!!!

All the images shown are from the internet, they are not my photographs.

What follows is why so many on the Hog Forum regar... (show quote)

Nice poetic "science" but that does not answer the OP with an optics explanation. I agree airy-discs and diffraction my be in play here. I'm tending to be seeing (wave) interference as well. He is not asking about the bright circles (big deal) but the odd ripples like some quantum effect. Perhaps he captured a Black Hole near the leaves!

Robg

Timmers wrote:

... the golden means, also the Fibonacci principle. That Fibonacci principle is attributed to an Italian story about I guy who championed the principle of what is also referred to as the golden means.

There are multiple errors here that I cannot leave uncorrected.

There is no Fibonacci principle. There is the Fibonacci sequence (which is probably what is being referred to here) that generates the Fibonacci numbers.

There is no golden means. There is something called the golden mean. "Means" is analogous to method, as in "nefarious means were used." Mean when used with "golden" is a mathematical term.

Fibonacci did not discover or invent the golden mean. It dates back at least to Aristotle, more than a thousand years before Fibonacci.

There is an interesting connection between the Fibonacci numbers and the golden mean, which may have been what gave rise to the other misunderstandings: adjacent numbers in the Fibonacci sequence come close to being in the golden ratio although never exactly.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

lamiaceae wrote:

I have never seen (experienced) an effect like tha... (show quote)

I tink you meant highlights from specular reflections. Of course there always the holy highlights. HI HI

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

moosus wrote:

I recently bought a new Nikon 28-300mm 1:3.5-5.6 G... (show quote)

You didn't by any chance shoot through a window, did you?

R.G. Loc: Scotland

E.L.. Shapiro wrote:

There ain't nothin' wrong with your lens! Excuse the double negative in my faulty grammar but reads TIMMERS post again and learn something.

This "bokeh" thing has become a misunderstood buzzword. So let's break it down to easily understood mechanics. So...you photographed a bird with a long lens at a fairly wide aperture- the bird is sharp and the background and FOREGROUND are out of focus. The out of focus background is comprised of little round blobs of light usually caused by light passing through things like tree branches and transilluminated foliage. The blobs are usually round and that is because they take on the shape of the aperture or the lens barrel- even if the diaphragm is wide open. Anything else that is placed in the light path, usually in front of the lens and remains out of focus will alter the shape of the blobs. Think of it as changing the shape of the aperture, especially if it is relatively close to the lens. Remember the objects in the foreground, when there is a minimal depth of field are ALSO out of focus so they are not defined in your image but they influence the shape of the blobs of light in the background.

So...the so-called bokeh is not magically produced by a special lens or one that is said to have especially good bokeh- and it won't always be uniform unless there is no foreground interference. Some lenses may have a more appealing effect to some photographers because they have more diaphragm blades, a unique aperture shape or are very fast and have an especially low f/stop such as f/1.0 or f/.95 where the depth of field is extremely shallow and the "bokeh" readily appears even at a shorter distance between the subject and the background.

Do a simple experiment to prove my point. Focus on an object, set a longer focal length, and a wide aperture, and make certain the background is well out of focus and illuminate as I have described. Get a thin dark object like a black pencil, a thin twig or a thin black cable tie and place in front of the lens in a diagonal fashion. Observe the blobs carefully and you will notice that there is a small diagonal line passing through the diameter of the "circle.". If you were to place a number of thin objects in front of the lens- odd shapes and direction, all kinds of different shape and pattern would occur in the blobs and some of them would become "misshapen"!

When you shot that bird, my money's on the probability that you shot through branches, twigs and other tree parts and that is a perfectly natural and pleasing effect. I purposely do that all the time when I am shooting portraits and other subjects where I want to get away for the usual effect, create a romantic or ethereal mood or a natural or colorful. vignette. Oftentimes I purposely shoot through the foliage, hedges, brush, high grass and I even have an old skylight filter with a few strips of black pinstripe tape just in cases there is nothing to shoot through.

There have been numerous "arguments" on this forum where folks are trying to define "bokeh"! It is simply a product of depth of field usage, selective focus techniques, and the photographs taste and visions. It can be smooth, blobs, or different lines or patterns. It can be out of focus foreground framing.

My general advice to many folks here on the HOG is to stop reading all the advertising and marketing propaganda and worrying about expensive lenses trademarked as "Art". The art is in knowing how to manipulate the optics. Google Mr. Fibonacci instead of Mr. Sigma or Mr. Zeiss! When you are out shooting, observe the effect at various focal lengths, apertures, and relative subject/background/foreground distances.

Oh, sorry for the omission of all the scholarly technical/optical terminology- I am sure "blobs" is not in the glossary and besides, I always found the term "circles of confusion" kinda CONFUSING!

There ain't nothin' wrong with your lens! Excuse t... (show quote)

That's an interesting suggestion but I don't see how foreground stuff could produce the circle of ripples AND the outlying ripples as well. However, there are a couple of blurry, light, long curving lines in the bottom left corner (going left and up from the bottom of the guttering) which may have been produced by intervening cables or some such.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Robg wrote:

There are multiple errors here that I cannot leave... (show quote)

Yes! The Fibonacci principles and the numerical sequences contained in the Euclid pronciples are studied by many artists and photograher as applied to COMPOSITION rather that optics. Concepts like the use and proportion of space within a composition. Interesting!

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

E.L.. Shapiro wrote:

There ain't nothin' wrong with your lens! Excuse the double negative in my faulty grammar but reads TIMMERS post again and learn something.

This "bokeh" thing has become a misunderstood buzzword. So let's break it down to easily understood mechanics. So...you photographed a bird with a long lens at a fairly wide aperture- the bird is sharp and the background and FOREGROUND are out of focus. The out of focus background is comprised of little round blobs of light usually caused by light passing through things like tree branches and transilluminated foliage. The blobs are usually round and that is because they take on the shape of the aperture or the lens barrel- even if the diaphragm is wide open. Anything else that is placed in the light path, usually in front of the lens and remains out of focus will alter the shape of the blobs. Think of it as changing the shape of the aperture, especially if it is relatively close to the lens. Remember the objects in the foreground, when there is a minimal depth of field are ALSO out of focus so they are not defined in your image but they influence the shape of the blobs of light in the background.

So...the so-called bokeh is not magically produced by a special lens or one that is said to have especially good bokeh- and it won't always be uniform unless there is no foreground interference. Some lenses may have a more appealing effect to some photographers because they have more diaphragm blades, a unique aperture shape or are very fast and have an especially low f/stop such as f/1.0 or f/.95 where the depth of field is extremely shallow and the "bokeh" readily appears even at a shorter distance between the subject and the background.

Do a simple experiment to prove my point. Focus on an object, set a longer focal length, and a wide aperture, and make certain the background is well out of focus and illuminate as I have described. Get a thin dark object like a black pencil, a thin twig or a thin black cable tie and place in front of the lens in a diagonal fashion. Observe the blobs carefully and you will notice that there is a small diagonal line passing through the diameter of the "circle.". If you were to place a number of thin objects in front of the lens- odd shapes and direction, all kinds of different shape and pattern would occur in the blobs and some of them would become "misshapen"!

When you shot that bird, my money's on the probability that you shot through branches, twigs and other tree parts and that is a perfectly natural and pleasing effect. I purposely do that all the time when I am shooting portraits and other subjects where I want to get away for the usual effect, create a romantic or ethereal mood or a natural or colorful. vignette. Oftentimes I purposely shoot through the foliage, hedges, brush, high grass and I even have an old skylight filter with a few strips of black pinstripe tape just in cases there is nothing to shoot through.

There have been numerous "arguments" on this forum where folks are trying to define "bokeh"! It is simply a product of depth of field usage, selective focus techniques, and the photographs taste and visions. It can be smooth, blobs, or different lines or patterns. It can be out of focus foreground framing.

My general advice to many folks here on the HOG is to stop reading all the advertising and marketing propaganda and worrying about expensive lenses trademarked as "Art". The art is in knowing how to manipulate the optics. Google Mr. Fibonacci instead of Mr. Sigma or Mr. Zeiss! When you are out shooting, observe the effect at various focal lengths, apertures, and relative subject/background/foreground distances.

Oh, sorry for the omission of all the scholarly technical/optical terminology- I am sure "blobs" is not in the glossary and besides, I always found the term "circles of confusion" kinda CONFUSING!

There ain't nothin' wrong with your lens! Excuse t... (show quote)

You absolutely nailed it with your explanation.
To simplify the general concept - foreground bokeh pattern interacting with background bokeh pattern, creating a secondary pattern (in this case, the ripple effect).

Unfortunately, there are UHH members who will continue to insist the lens is defective and it needs to be replaced.