What's "bokeh?"

[Steve Foss]

Bokeh is a Japanese word that describes the out-of-focus foreground and/or background in a picture that turns said foreground/background into something like painting brush strokes, de-emphasizing everything but the subject.

You get nice bokeh by using a long telephoto and as wide open an f-stop as possible. This was shot at 640mm and f5.6. There are both foreground and background elements showing the blur and framing the in-focus pine siskin. The bokeh would be even more pronounced if I had a lens that opened wider, like f4 or f2.8 (I have a 400mm L f2.8 on the way!)

The more a person shoots wildlife, the more likely he/she is to start paying close attention to distracting backgrounds/foregrounds. Bokeh is a good way to cancel them out. You don't need a giant lens to achieve it. Pay attention to what's in the frame of the shot and open your aperature as wide as you can. The farther the foreground/background elements are from the subject, the less power you need in the lens. A 70-300 that only opens to f4 or f5.6 can do a great job at bokeh if those other elements are far enough away from the subject.

Here is a pine siskin from today for an example. Nothing special about the image, really. The foreground and background branches were within six inches to two feet of the bird. I see lots of other examples of good bokeh on this and the bird watching board. Anybody got some other bokeh to show?

[buzzsaw]

Well done and nicely explained. oh and Steve, check out this link.

http://cgi.hsolist.com/Canon-FD-400mm-L-f2-8-telephoto-lens_W0QQitemZ7587958728QQcategoryZ48552QQcmdZViewItem

[MN Shutterbug]

This is where a camera with a depth of field preview would really be handy. Do digital SLR's have that feature? I know one of my old Nikon's did and it was kinda neat to see in advance what the different apertures would do. Amazingly, you can render the bars of cages at a zoo practically invisible by placing the camera right against the bars and opening the f stop all the way. Almost as if the bars were never there. The lens sees right thru them.

[Steve Foss]

X, some do and some don't. It's a nice feature, but it only takes a little time and practice to figure out what bokeh you'll get on specific settings.

Buzz, that lens is an old manual focus (that's what FD stand for in Canon speak). If it was an EF (autofocus) lens for that price, it'd be a steal. A new EF 400 f2.8L Image Stabilizer goes for a bit less than $6,500.

As it is, even the amount of money asked for that beat-up old FD is too high.

[Dbl]

Two examples, both are lousy images, just happen to show bokeh. And my Pentax does have DOF preview.

[MN Shutterbug]

Nothing lousy about those images DBL. The chickadee could have been a little more cooperative and posed for you, but they sure are decent shots.