Bokeh (Page 2): No, that is NOT Bokeh! (Bo Kay). That is background, pure and simple. Even in Brooklynese! :-).

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

No, that is NOT Bokeh! (Bo Kay). That is background, pure and simple. Even in Brooklynese! :-).

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Retired CPO wrote:

No, that is NOT Bokeh! That is background, pure and simple. Even in Brooklynese! :-).

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

Longshadow wrote:

I've never pronounced, nor heard it pronounced bo-kay.
Sounds too much like bouquet.

The primary pronunciation listed in the dictionary is boh-kuh, which is what I've always heard, and use.

I thought that was pronounced Boo Ket!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Retired CPO wrote:

I thought that was pronounced Bo Ket!

Just ask Hyacinth Bucket.....

charlienow Loc: Hershey, PA

E.L.. Shapiro wrote:

I have a problem- I was born, raised and early-educated in Brooklyn. I, to this day, do not pronounce many English words correctly. It took me years to realize that the alphabet includes the letter "R" and that "th" is not pronounced as "D"! I have to take elocution lessons. I still need to work on my English pronunciation so as for Japanese- FORGETABOUTIT.

Thanks for your input. It is always insightful.

Chuck
I sat through a year of "OPTICS" class and never heard the term "BOKEH". We discussed terms like Depth of Field, Circles of Confusion, and all lens abberations- enough to cause a student to develop mental abberations. It turned out that I actually liked certain aberrations for ethereal effects.

"Bokeh" is just a new buzzword for folks to become preoccupied with. So, you get folks spending big bucks on an f/.95 a lens so they can make a portrait and have the subject's ears become part of the "bokeh"! Or, they buy a certain one because they like the shape of the diaphragm blades for, what else? BOKEH!

All kidding aside, of course, background management is an important part of many kinds of photography and understanding and controlling the depth of field is part of that skill set. There are many other factors that influence the appearance of an out-of-focus background. The relative volume of light, the direction of lighht, various interferences and colour content and reflectance of the background. It seems, however, that so many photograhers shoot portraits, flowers and wildlife as if the subject is standing in front of a mass of obnoxious, super colourful party balloons. The "Bokeh" becomes a distraction!

My Brooklyneses interpretation is words like "blobs, fuzz, rhythms, bubblers smooth, sharp, fog, wash, and many other combinations, concoctions, and permutations of the aforementioned slang.

Attached - The results of Spherical Abberation combined with a shallow depth of field. The lens- A Rodenstock Imagon ought H/Stops- looks like a drain strainer from a sink with multiple adjustable apertures. ISO 100, H/6.3 Electronic flash. Gold Xmas tinsel in the background

Bokah? Who knows!

I have a problem- I was born, raised and early-edu... (show quote)

Thanks for your input. It is always insightful

Chuck

BebuLamar

Longshadow wrote:

So what was it called before "bokeh" came along?
Seems like a convenient single word descriptor to me.

I think before that (which Wikipedia said around 1997) they didn't call it anything.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

BebuLamar wrote:

I think before that (which Wikipedia said around 1997) they didn't call it anything.

"Great out-of-focus background."

Bokeh is so much more convenient.

Just Shoot Me Loc: Ithaca, NY

E.L.. Shapiro wrote:

I have a problem- I was born, raised and early-educated in Brooklyn. I, to this day, do not pronounce many English words correctly. It took me years to realize that the alphabet includes the letter "R" and that "th" is not pronounced as "D"! I have to take elocution lessons. I still need to work on my English pronunciation so as for Japanese- FORGETABOUTIT.

I sat through a year of "OPTICS" class and never heard the term "BOKEH". We discussed terms like Depth of Field, Circles of Confusion, and all lens abberations- enough to cause a student to develop mental abberations. It turned out that I actually liked certain aberrations for ethereal effects.

"Bokeh" is just a new buzzword for folks to become preoccupied with. So, you get folks spending big bucks on an f/.95 a lens so they can make a portrait and have the subject's ears become part of the "bokeh"! Or, they buy a certain one because they like the shape of the diaphragm blades for, what else? BOKEH!

All kidding aside, of course, background management is an important part of many kinds of photography and understanding and controlling the depth of field is part of that skill set. There are many other factors that influence the appearance of an out-of-focus background. The relative volume of light, the direction of lighht, various interferences and colour content and reflectance of the background. It seems, however, that so many photograhers shoot portraits, flowers and wildlife as if the subject is standing in front of a mass of obnoxious, super colourful party balloons. The "Bokeh" becomes a distraction!

My Brooklyneses interpretation is words like "blobs, fuzz, rhythms, bubblers smooth, sharp, fog, wash, and many other combinations, concoctions, and permutations of the aforementioned slang.

Attached - The results of Spherical Abberation combined with a shallow depth of field. The lens- A Rodenstock Imagon ought H/Stops- looks like a drain strainer from a sink with multiple adjustable apertures. ISO 100, H/6.3 Electronic flash. Gold Xmas tinsel in the background

Bokah? Who knows!

I have a problem- I was born, raised and early-edu... (show quote)

My friends always laugh at me when I order a "vodker and 7-up." From Bayridge, NY

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

Just Shoot Me wrote:

My friends always laugh at me when I order a "vodker and 7-up." From Bayridge, NY

I would laugh at you too! My friends laugh at me and I've never said vodker in my life!!

Bill_de Loc: US

charlienow wrote:

I have never heard this word spoken, always written. I always say it is my head as bouquet like in a bouquet of flowers. Is this correct?

Chuck

"What is bokeh?
Bokeh is a word with Japanese origins, defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” The word comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “haze” or “blur.” (The “h” was introduced to help English speakers pronounce the word correctly [BO - KEH].)"

From:

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/bokeh-effect.html

Hear it here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+bokeh+correctly&ei=HkvgYpuWMvWs0PEPi6GroAs&oq=pronounce+bokeh&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAEYATIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgYIABAeEAUyBggAEB4QBTIICAAQHhAPEAUyBggAEB4QCDIGCAAQHhAIMgUIABCGAzoHCAAQRxCwAzoHCAAQsAMQQzoHCC4QsAMQQzoGCAAQHhAHOgoIABCxAxCDARANOg0ILhCxAxCDARDUAhANOgQIABANOgcIABCxAxANOgoILhCxAxCDARANOgQILhANOggIABAeEAgQBzoKCAAQHhAPEAgQB0oECEEYAEoECEYYAFDoG1icR2DnXGgBcAF4AIABqAGIAYIKkgEDMS45mAEAoAEByAEKwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz

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User ID

rmalarz wrote:

Chuck, pronunciation aside, this might put things into perspective for many.

https://fujixweekly.com/2018/12/16/why-bokeh-is-overrated/
--Bob

IOW, good practice is to never speak the word. Even better would be to just delete it from your mind. The word is almost never properly used so its useless. It has nothing to do with visibly OOF blobs in fuzzy backgrounds.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

User ID wrote:

IOW, good practice is to never speak the word. Even better would be to just delete it from your mind. The word is almost never properly used so its useless. It has nothing to do with visibly OOF blobs in fuzzy backgrounds.

You mean this definition is wrong?
"... the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image."

Darn. What will they change next.

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

Longshadow wrote:

So what was it called before "bokeh" came along?
Seems like a convenient single-word descriptor to me.

I have no objection to the single descriptor word usage and I think "Bokeh" is cool!

My observation is that photograher get obsessed, kinda OCD, perhaps overly redundant and repetitive and obsessively concerned with so many terms and theories that they almost forget about simply making images. They will skip or miss great photo ops because they are afraid to stop down for additional depth of field fearing the diffraction gods will banish them from the IQ universe. They are afraid to increase the ISO- surely the noise will totally distroy the resulting image.

New technologies bring enough complex terminology to the craft. Add that all the slang, buzzwords and "in-words for otherwise simple concepts and you have a foreign language.

Old timmers, like me are fine with all this lino- back in the day, we had all kinds of photo-slang and colloquiums, mostof which are seldom or never heard nowadays. They have been replaced by other terms many folds.

All of this can be intimidating to newcomers to the craft and especially newcomers to the forums. Sometimes they are made to feel that the photographyisn an exclusive club with a secret language and if they mispronounce or misuse a term they will be shamed and shunned- cast the edge of the earth and go straight to hell!

"Bokeh" does not simply mean background. A background can be sure what, jet black or just about anything yoycan imagine.

The encyclopedic meaning is good enough for me:

In photography, bokeh (/ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə or BOH-kay; Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Bokeh has also been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause very different bokeh effects. Some lens designs blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce distracting or unpleasant blurring ("good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively). Photographers may deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions, accentuating their lens's bokeh.

Before the term "Bokeh" became popular, I just called it aesthetically pleasing circles of confusion.

Funny thing! "BOKE" IN Japanese MEANS "iDIOT"! Go figure!

idiot noun idiot noun

馬鹿, 白痴, 間抜け, 莫迦, 痴人

User ID

Longshadow wrote:

You mean this definition is wrong?
"... the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image."

Darn. What will they change next.

Right. That one is wrong, possibly the only piece of misinformation on the whole entire internet. Such a drag ...

You ask what will they change next. The fuzzy blob definition was a change from the classic meaning, and is a change for the worse.

If there were a new word to represent the classic meaning, it wouldnt really be a problem to let the fuzzy blob definition be the new general usage. Acoarst its not really appropriate for a bunch western marketeers to be reworking the Japanese language.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

User ID wrote:

Right. That one is wrong, possibly the only piece ... (show quote)

Then what is the "proper" definition?

Notice it said "the aesthetic looks" of the background, not the actual background.
It's conceptual/perceptual.