When did Bokeh come into common camera parlance? I’ve recently got back into photography as a hobby, having put my camera down in 2004 (funnily enough to get back into mountain biking). I don’t ever recall hearing or reading the term back then, but now it’s everywhere (or maybe there are more online resources).

Has it always been used and I just missed it?

The curse of DSLRs and the internet. I absolutely despise the word (probably irrationally, but there you go).

“Hey man, nice bokeh. What camera/lens/settings?”

🙄

It’s pretty recent, I don’t recall seeing it referred to more than a couple of years ago. It’s a digital artefact producing perfectly circular highlights on out of focus background objects, which requires certain settings to achieve, AFAIAA. Never really got into it myself, can’t be arsed with the phaffing around.

I started getting into togging about 10 years ago, I remember it from then.

If you don’t call it Bokeh, what do you call it? Nice blurry spots from the aperture of your lens?

no idea when it came into common camera parlance, but it’s not a digital artefact. It’s just something (usually a light) that is heavily out of focus.

It seems to be used to describe the generic blurring of backgrounds, i.e. shallow depth of field. It’s useful to have a word as calling it ‘depth of field’ is a bit axiomatic. But yes, it is a pretty crappy term.

Bokeh is Japanese innit’. Means blur.

As they make all the kit only seems fair they get to name the blurry shit it produces.

Bokeh

I understood Bokeh to be the shape of blurred light sources in the background

It’s a digital artefact producing perfectly circular highlights on out of focus background objects

Like this?

😉

(it’s chuff all to do with digital – just that the term grew more popular as the digital-revolution popularised SLRs and photography)

pretty sure the shape of the bokeh is determined by the shape of your aperture fins, hence bokeh rarely being perfectly circular, and more often slightly hexagonol?

It’s this. People seem to confuse this with the general effects of a narrow depth of field. As above, it’s become popular over the last four or five year due to the increasing prevelance of DSLRs and internet photography forums

If you don’t call it Bokeh, what do you call it?

Well “blur” would do 🙂

But I think various photography magazines/forums adopted “bokeh” as a subjective term to help them describe the quality of the blur (e.g. the softness and roundness, which varies between lenses depending on optics and aperture blades).

Personally I always imagine them gently swilling lenses around and sniffing them 😀

“Lovely bokeh. Bold ripe cherry, blueberries, summer fields, with a hint of bark and the quiet lingering flavour of a tramp’s testicle”

As Wikipedia says:

“the aesthetic quality of the blur in out-of-focus areas of an image”

There are people (usually Leica enthusiasts) who’ve been saying “I like/don’t like the way this lens handles out of focus areas” for a long time. Even two lenses with similar specification (but of a different design) at the same aperture. I first heard the term bokeh around 10 years ago.

First heard it on the Nikonians forum.

I like bokeh.
It makes your images come alive.

producing perfectly circular highlights

The shape of the blur is a function of the number and profile of the blades controlling aperture. So, not necessarily round.

First heard it on the Nikonians forum.
It makes your images come alive.

yubbut the 650d is Canon, isn’t it?

I like this effect (but it’s been done to death now…)

(not mine)