I remember in my first year at a prestigious art university in 2009, a student did a final project on bokeh and experimenting with changing the shape with filters - our prof admitted that it had been the first time they’ve heard of “bokeh” and I was shocked to hear that such a primary visual element in photography was never discussed or even thought to a level of detail by this instructor (nor was it ever explored in the following years by others). Didn’t think I’d come across this subject a decade later to the detail that would put a lot of the classes I took to shame! Thanks for the thought provoking content.
Well, I think in the past people just referred to depth of field as being shallow or otherwise and did not restructure their cognition to accommodate a word they had no use for. Everything else from a practical PoV was there.
I was watching the video in full screen and I just stopped to comment and say "thank you" for this high-quality video. Your work is amazing. Now back to video :)
This is just such an excellent primer, Simon! Apart from your clear experience, artistry and intellect, you use them all for the greater good. You outline the disagreements and controversies in the conversation about bokeh without taking sides. As students we’re free to choose our own creative path. Kind regards from Calgary! (Ward)
By far and away the best photography video I've come across. I found your channel by chance and subscribed immediately. Your take on Bokeh in practical and creative terms is totally educational. I loved the way you described the features and the benefits of using each vintage lens to achieve a Bokeh effect. Your nod art history (more than a nod really) was clever and absolutely relevant. Using Flickr stats from the outset, looking at evidence and what seemed to capture interest of the "Flickr-ed", successfully underpinned what you were saying.
High-quality video, the subject is treated with great competence and professionalism, a calm and deep voice that glues you to the screen from start to the finish.
I've been a photographer at - some level or another - since I was shooting my dad's pre-war IIIc and developing film in our basement around 1969. THIS is my best spent 20 minutes of that long history behind the camera. Thank you for all the hard work you CLEARLY put in to make this video.
Beautiful and inspiring discussion on bokeh. I loved the references back to painters and early photographers. I started photography in the early 70's with a Kodak 35RF, which was vintage even then. I used it through Jr and Sr High school. I had a lot of fun with that camera. Needless to say you have a new follower.
You need to create more content about just photography! I love your videos, so much depth, straight to the point and not pointless bantering! Thank you!
Having fun is right. I’ve been throughly enticed by all the facets of Digital photography, learning the camera, then the software, always a moving target, and now resurrecting old skills by collecting vintage lenses relearning manual camera operation, and pursuing capture of bokeh. The brain needs renewal and strengthening by making new neural connections all across the brain. Photography provides creative renewal and outlet.
Great view on bokeh and your take on putting things in a context. I have discovered your channel recently, and I am already a big fan of your documentairy-style of reviewing lenses and their behaviour. Keep up the good work!
Something I've noticed recently as I've started paying more attention to things like this is that there's bokeh in a reasonable number of cartoons. For example, Avatar does it sometimes. Since these are animation, there are no light and physics constraints--nothing *has* to be out of focus. But sometimes, and not every series does this, a foreground or background character will be blurred, and there will be a focus pull, just like in live action television or cinema.
My favourite bokeh is actually square (or diamond, if you choose), from the Zenitar-ME1 - and you can tell that it's catching on in digital photography because many eBay sellers of Helioses are modding some to have a square aperture as well.
Yes! Indeed, I made my square filter (it can also be rotated for that diamond shape) to try and recreate the ME-1 look, with my Zenitar M, without the cost.
You produced a very sophisticated and well structured video with some for me new perspectives (especially reg. the relationship between painting and photography - something what never before came into my mind). Such an analysis of the evolution of artsy image perception (triggered by progress in technology, especially photography) I had never seen before. Thank you for this interesting perspective.
I love this film putting much-needed perspective to this topic. Looking at the history of photography and its changing relationships with fine art, and also the attitude of artists, historically, to blur, is most illuminating. As a landscape and macro photographer I encounter the ecstatic "ooh, ooooh, such CREEEAAAAMY bokeh" as if the roundness and softness of the blurry circles is almost of itself the hallmark of an "artistic" or "painterly" photo. But often it is just like a bad imitation of an impressionist painting. Like always smoothing out the sea or a lake by very long exposure, or feeling that a vignette is virtually compulsory, something with the kernel of a good idea becomes fashionable and then gets slowly debased to clichée. I noticed though that you gave the time of day to a number of broken shapes, but most photographers (and also lens reviewers) find anything other than circles unacceptable, a total no-no. So thanks for your enlightenment, and your choice of art works to back up your points, and the wisdom of your experience!
Thank you for your videos Simon, I appreciate the time you have spent putting these together and I am looking forward to seeing some info on your wider lens category experiences.
Exellent explained and composed video highly informative and great to view and listen. All examples and comments are right on the target. I enjoyed this immenslly. Thank you for sharing this amazing view of your toughta and insights from your research. ❤
I really can’t tell you just how much I enjoy your videos. Extraordinary, thanks. They hit the mark. Intelligent and thoughtful, enough history and detail, relevant technical when necessary.
While the word “bokeh” to describe the subjective quality of out-of-focus areas is relatively recent, and the distinctions that allow us to qualify good or better bokeh tend to be elusive, there is absolutely nothing new or recent about the placement and extent of out-of-focus areas in photographic composition. Older cameras like the Rolleiflex, along with a larger film size and a waist-level viewfinder to avoid composing through a keyhole, also had an intuitive and easy to use depth of field scale on the focus knob, allowing very controlled depth composition, and photographers all knew and used the 2/3 rule for focus depth control. This level of control actually became lost to some degree as SLR cameras made it more difficult to visualize (the preview button on most SLRs being a direct but hard to see visualization). Early digital cameras, with their tiny sensors essentially eliminated the subject altogether, as everything is in focus - a flatness that still characterizes most people’s camera- phone photography - but interest is definitely rekindling with the use of larger sensors and the “rediscovery” of what was always a principle aspect of photographic composition pre-digital. I too did a study many years ago of classical painting to see if and where they may have used out-of-focus to control backgrounds. Knowing that many painters had used a Camera Obscura, I felt they “must” have observed it, but I concluded this aesthetic treatment was simply not appreciated or sought after in most of classical painting, and as such may be considered a “new” compositional aesthetic introduced by photography.
A brilliant video. Love your addition of painting. In the late 70's and in the 80's what also interested me; very crisp and sharp B&W people pictures and, on the other hand, soft focus color nudes using various diffusion and fog filters. Of course, glamor magazine pictures with strobes, umbrellas and studio backdrops. So much creativity over the years. So many influences to try and to practice over the years. Grateful.
The most illuminating 20 minutes of video that I've seen since recently taking up photography again. I'd never heard about bokeh until I picked up a camera again and you've filled in all the gaps since I was taught to stop down to sharpen my images. Thanks for pointing out that the artistic use of bokeh is subjective as I've seen a lot of videos talking b@lls about bokeh balls, with opinions being passed off as the right way to do things, and which was the best type of bokeh rendered by which lenses (typically the ones for those with deep pockets). Thank you Simon, for much needed clarity.
I loved this video. What a great idea to take on a brief history of our evolving perspective on our world and how we represent it. Perhaps the mystery we humans crave may found in the blur. For me, the best photographs juxtapose ideas and maintain creative internal tension. Bokeh does this, naturally. It obscures and tantalizes. It dethrones the 'object' in focus by suggesting there's more. Sometimes, I think of racecar drivers. The faster they go, the smaller and more central their focus becomes because they cannot take in that much visual information. As the pace of information coming at us in our world increases, so must the blur. My own interest in bokeh suggests to me that no matter how busy, crazy or overwhelming life can be, there's beauty in the blur. Those painters you referenced showed life they way they saw it. Mine has lot of blur and with the right lens, it can have bubbles too! Keep making these fun, thought-provoking videos!!
You started with the same camera as I did,and around the same time. My journey has many parrallels with yours,love your take on this subject and wishing you all the best for the new year ahead.
Thank you for taking "bokeh" from the hands of the UA-cam camera sales channels and putting in firmly in the hands of the creative. Loved your presentation and look forward to all your talks. Now of to your Flickr collection.......
Thank you! It's interesting how the camera/lens makers like to promote how their lenses achieve "a perfect balance between sharpness and smooth/natural bokeh"....and then they show examples (including bubble bokeh) that are more creative than natural.
thank you for these videos. I haven't touched a real camera for decades and only did it for my slide portfolio of my work. Your videos are really helping me understand what I am seeing now that digital photography allows me to see more quickly what I am trying to do than I was able to do 30 years ago. Thanks
Thank you Simon, you've given me a new idea to indulge myself with. Just ordered a M42 to Sony A mount adapter so I can pull out my Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens on my Pentax Spotmatic that has been lying unused decades ... can't wait to play with it on my Sony full frame DSLR
This is a really well done take on the phenomenon of bokeh. I imagine that the rise of autofocus also contributed to this since the razor thin depth of focus becomes so much less of an inhibitor to getting the subject sharp when shooting wide open for other reasons.
Simon, Great talk. Very informative and, for me, thought provoking. I'm a relative newcomer to photography at 65. Mostly interested in wildlife photography and in that birds. To hear most talk as if bokeh was always the measure, or a measure of a fine image. It was very refreshing to hear otherwise. I'm excited to hear that photography as an art form is alive and still unfolding.
Very interesting video, thanks. Certainly these days, fast primes are tuned to be sharper at the fast end, which is the reason people buy them in the first place, whereas older or consumer lenses are tuned more for the middle, f5.6 or f8. The star shape of early fast lenses from Zeiss or Canon was to compensate for the focus shift on rangefinders like the Leicas. In the film days, a fast lens meant you could shoot with slower film, and hence less grain, in less than ideal conditions, but obviously the creative potential was quickly explored. It’s slightly ironic you use Vermeer in your example as he is believed to have used a Camera Obscura for the few surviving paintings we have of his, all made inside his house, and the one landscape was the view out of his window. Which makes sense when you consider how large those things were. A clue to its use is ironically Bokeh, since he painted what was projected faithfully, including camera blur and speculate highlights (bokeh balls), which you don’t see from painters directly observing an object. Which is not to say he was trying to paint bokeh, it is slight and merely an artefact of the process.
I first started utilizing the bokeh effect in 1970 as a staff photographer at a stock photo agency in London.The Japanese term "Bokeh" was not known to us back then, so one of the agency librarians came up with the term "Circles of confusion" which stuck for some years. I was given an assignment of producing still life images suitable for Christmas cards which I shot on a 10 x 8 inch film studio camera using Kodak Ektachrome transparency film. By using long garlands of Christmas tinsel I was able to hang them in the background, and I also made a circle of it with some wire to shoot through. The subjects were often Christmas candles, baubles, and even cute kittens and puppies. Because the lens was so big, I was able place text between the glass elements, such as "Happy Christmas," which meant that the message was repeated in every bokeh bubble. Now that I am retired, I just use my iPhone 12 Pro Max, but can still achieve the bokeh effect by using the portrait mode on f1.4 with of course the right lighting effect.
Great video. Well thought through and presented. Interesting point about fast lenses in the film era being all about shooting in low light rather than creating blur. We are spoilt for choice with digital cameras with hugely variable Iso and cheap ND filters to shoot wide open no matter the conditions.!!
Love the video, especially the discussion about art history and the use of camera obscura. I think the only thing missing is cinema's use of selective focus. I know in my life, some of the earliest and most striking examples of bokeh and selective focus were in movies, where various technical constraints force a lot of wide-open shooting with extremely fast prime lenses. I suspect that may have had an impact on lens designs for stills in the film era, and why there are so many nice bokeh lenses from that time.
I would say the 1st time i became aware of out of focus backgrounds as an artistic effect was as a child in the 80's watching movies. I remember asking my mum why it looked like that and her explaining it to me.
Great video! Bokeh is very cool, one of my favorite cameras the Polaroid SX-70 creates diamond-shaped bokeh because of the uniquely shaped shutter blades.
Love your videos, Simon, you have a great narration voice and your videos are highly watchable. You've made me think about overdoing the bokeh and keeping the background looking more natural in my photos.
You end this video saying "that's my view anyway". I disagree. You are too thorough in this subject to sum it up just as a view. This is by far the best video I have ever seen about bokeh in photography. Really impressive, thank you!
Having started in film and then shot mostly digital for the last decade plus i had actually forgotten how unusual it was for me to shoot below f4 innthe film days. Lovely study of Bokeh.
I love photography. Thank you sir for shring your knowledge. It really made my mind to be more creative. This video will surely take photography to another level.❤️
Fairly new to the channel. Really loving it. Im also an adapted lens enthusiast, out of them all, I still prefer the uniqueness of the meyer - optik oreston!
Very informative video. The last year or so I have been doing astrophotography and a few of my peers have been using various techniques to add diffraction spikes to star images to give their pictures an artistic flair.
Many classical painters, including Da Vinci and certainly Claude Lorraine, used a technique knows as aerial perspective, after noticing that colors become more muted as they recede. They recreated this effect, and while it was more about color, it also reduced contrast, and thus, made backgrounds softer. That's probably why the Mona Lisa's background looks the way it does. Bokeh is really just an enhanced version of this natural visual effect, which is probably one why our brains are able to process it as something that looks good.
Excellent video - been really enjoying your channel! I started learning photography on 35mm but just picked up a mirrorless camera for more general use and video, looking forward to testing out more vintage lenses on it! Currently using it with my Zuiko lenses :)
This is so bizarre and interesting history of it. I have been taking pics since early 80s and back then it was simply called depth of field. I had a friend start to get into photography in mid 2000s and stalled it bokeh. I said you mean depth of field? But I have always been more towards wide open shallow depth of field shots than ones with larger depth of field personally. So interesting to see you break down history that it's a relatively new phenomenon of style. I know you used painting for comparison, but my interest came from movies, especially as they have creatively used it for quite some time to tell stories and force focus of the viewer in scenes. Now makes me want to go back and watch some older films and see when it became more popular.
Back in the good old days of film photographers had much more points of composition in mind. Bokeh is a primary digital concept, which don't exist in this special way before. Classical concepts were more aware to devide lines, composing more with diagonals and perspective and colors. The blurr was only an additional item to get a clear separation of the scene. Classic portraits were taken mostly with dark backgrounds or a decent and mostly sophisticated lighting. Personally I think, that the classic photography offers more ways to get the individual picture. Bokeh concentrates on visual effects, which overwhelms sometimes the real subject. 40 years of film photography didn't change my mind.... and yes, I use although Jupiter, Industar and Helios Lenses along with my FD's.... but in a more classical way. And: Great review of the subject!
It's funny that modern lenses are so focused on very smooth bokeh that they even have those "DS" lenses to create even more smooth bokeh to the point I find the image look somehow plain and tedious, and they are much more expensive than it's regular version.
Well done Simon. Is a great tutorial. You can find sometimes on ebay lenses with square or elips apperture blades. They are lovely. I have a square one on a Helios 44.2. The most are made on the Helios lenses.
What a great video Ive just watched the first half, and I give you my hat, for your presentation, researc and your silky voice I still wish I had a full frame camera so I could do some bokeh shots of my g/f
Thanks for posting and well said! Personally I really like bokeh shots - especially where the bokeh somehow balances the main subject. Super smooth uniform bokeh (like I have seen with other peoples HD DFA* 50 f1.4) is great for isolating a subject and works well when there is a significant main subject to bring attention to. But then a random subject with bokeh that has more character can also work really well. Even mirror lens donuts can look great when the scene and subject is right. I have a shot I like of water droplets at night on a window and its the colourful light bokeh behind that really makes the shot. I really like your swirly shots taken with the 44-2 too - I find the lens a bit hit and miss and needs the right background for it to work well.
Nice and interesting video. While we had lenses back in the analogue manual focus days that could produce nice bokeh wide open, we didn't really have very good focusing aids in general to nail a so thin focusing plane to where it needed to be. Even with the introduction of autofocus, the precision wasn't really there in the beginning. It was first with digital cameras, especially mirrorless ones, with the possibility for continuous autofocus with Eye-AF and when used with manual focus lenses the possibility to zoom into magnification view that we could more easily work with razor thin depth of field and still nail it exactly where we wanted the sharpness. I think this very much contributes to the popularity in the later years.
This is a really good point - that I missed in the video. I've been playing with a top down viewfinder Praktica FX2 recently, and it's surprising how poor the image is for focusing etc. It's a bit better with a split screen guide on later film cameras, but still difficult. And now, as you write, we can zoom in on images using the camera to focus small areas with extremely narrow depth of fields. Cheers, Simon
@@Simonsutak It is not just for (vintage) manual focus lenses the new mirrorless technology is good. I actually bought an Olympus camera in 2013 since they had Eye-AF autofocus already then just to be able to do shallow depth of field portraits with autofocus lenses. Now all manufacturers have mirrorless cameras and continuous Eye-AF, not just for stills but also in video. I guess this soon will trickle down to a new Bokeh trend in scenes involving movement in Hollywood reels.
Really interesting and well done sir! Really enjoyed watching. Btw, your voice is really soothing to listen to and would be perfect for professional narration!👌
Bokeh was invented by Michael Johnson in 1997 (IIRC). It is doubtless named for Bo-Keh, the Japanese god of fuzzy concepts. It has the distinction of being the only "artistic" quality you can buy. And now we have "Bokeh Balls" which photographers actually call specular highlights, and have done so for decades.
I suspect that it's more shallow depth of field than "bokeh" that attracts the contemporary creators and audience. I believe you were spot on in your description of how we handled depth of field in the past, but generally, the imaging plane was 35mm film, so everyone was on the same playing field and just getting the dang image in focus was paramount (so we often used smaller apertures). As digital cameras became common (and consumer camcorders), sensors tended to be smaller and everything was in focus. Then affordable cameras with sensors as large as APS-C and even MFT (and now obviously "full frame"), offer a way to stand out and escape the images that anyone could so easily produce from a cheap camcorder or camera phone. The shallow depth of field simply looked high end, unique, and "professional". Now that shallow depth of field is more common, the quality of it has become an interest... hello, bokeh.
06:00 I recall at maximum pupil diameter of 7mm in a young adult our eye is about f/4.5. As we age out pupil gets less flexible and will not open that wide... so even slower. This from a light gathering perspective calculating usable magnification in telescopes and binoculars.
I remember in my first year at a prestigious art university in 2009, a student did a final project on bokeh and experimenting with changing the shape with filters - our prof admitted that it had been the first time they’ve heard of “bokeh” and I was shocked to hear that such a primary visual element in photography was never discussed or even thought to a level of detail by this instructor (nor was it ever explored in the following years by others). Didn’t think I’d come across this subject a decade later to the detail that would put a lot of the classes I took to shame! Thanks for the thought provoking content.
Wow. Interesting.
Apparently bokeh had been around since the 1990s.
Well, I think in the past people just referred to depth of field as being shallow or otherwise and did not restructure their cognition to accommodate a word they had no use for. Everything else from a practical PoV was there.
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I was watching the video in full screen and I just stopped to comment and say "thank you" for this high-quality video. Your work is amazing. Now back to video :)
Thank so much! Glad you are enjoying it!
same feeling. great video and excelent points, naration narative and examples. ❤
This was a hell of a lot more detailed (and enjoyable) than I expected.
Thank you, glad to hear this.
So-much-fun walk through the history and use of bokeh, and how painters and photographers have influenced each other. You're a real asset.
Thank you!
My friend. This is fantastic! Your whole channel is fantastic but this is pure gold.
Well thought out and masterfully presented. Your points on painters' uses of blur or sharp focus are particularly interesting.
Really Interesting :) You got a new subscriber !
Praise indeed! Me too.
This should be a dream to see a New Subscriber @ Mathieu Stern Caliber!
Congratulation Simon on your great achievement.
This is just such an excellent primer, Simon! Apart from your clear experience, artistry and intellect, you use them all for the greater good. You outline the disagreements and controversies in the conversation about bokeh without taking sides. As students we’re free to choose our own creative path. Kind regards from Calgary! (Ward)
Natural 'Bokeh' happens when you are nearsighted and take off your glasses.
oh man)))) sooo true))))
Then I have some of the most incredible bokeh! I burst out laughing when I read your comment. Thanks!
The true Bokeh.
I just realized how true that is haha
I resemble that remark - no glasses, "all the world's a bokeh"
By far and away the best photography video I've come across. I found your channel by chance and subscribed immediately. Your take on Bokeh in practical and creative terms is totally educational. I loved the way you described the features and the benefits of using each vintage lens to achieve a Bokeh effect. Your nod art history (more than a nod really) was clever and absolutely relevant. Using Flickr stats from the outset, looking at evidence and what seemed to capture interest of the "Flickr-ed", successfully underpinned what you were saying.
High-quality video, the subject is treated with great competence and professionalism, a calm and deep voice that glues you to the screen from start to the finish.
You have the most amazing voice for voice overs, loving your channel, very informative
I've been a photographer at - some level or another - since I was shooting my dad's pre-war IIIc and developing film in our basement around 1969. THIS is my best spent 20 minutes of that long history behind the camera. Thank you for all the hard work you CLEARLY put in to make this video.
Beautiful and inspiring discussion on bokeh. I loved the references back to painters and early photographers. I started photography in the early 70's with a Kodak 35RF, which was vintage even then. I used it through Jr and Sr High school. I had a lot of fun with that camera. Needless to say you have a new follower.
Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words - much appreciated.
The history of art was such great context. Captivating and informative. Thanks for taking time to put this together and share with us.
This was a beautiful way to tell and teach the history and art of bokeh, thanks for this work
You need to create more content about just photography! I love your videos, so much depth, straight to the point and not pointless bantering! Thank you!
Wow! So impressive! Love the depth you walk us through. Just reminded me how I enjoyed college 😂
Great narrating voice. It's great that you script your videos as well, makes for a very enjoyable viewing experience.
Having fun is right. I’ve been throughly enticed by all the facets of Digital photography, learning the camera, then the software, always a moving target, and now resurrecting old skills by collecting vintage lenses relearning manual camera operation, and pursuing capture of bokeh. The brain needs renewal and strengthening by making new neural connections all across the brain. Photography provides creative renewal and outlet.
Great view on bokeh and your take on putting things in a context. I have discovered your channel recently, and I am already a big fan of your documentairy-style of reviewing lenses and their behaviour. Keep up the good work!
Something I've noticed recently as I've started paying more attention to things like this is that there's bokeh in a reasonable number of cartoons. For example, Avatar does it sometimes. Since these are animation, there are no light and physics constraints--nothing *has* to be out of focus. But sometimes, and not every series does this, a foreground or background character will be blurred, and there will be a focus pull, just like in live action television or cinema.
Very informative video. Thanks for producing this.
just discovered your channel... I am appreciating every video. Incredible quality!
Glad you like them!
Absolutely loved this explanation of Bokeh!! Well done! and now i'm a lot wiser on the history of the subject i'm so addicted to haha
My favourite bokeh is actually square (or diamond, if you choose), from the Zenitar-ME1 - and you can tell that it's catching on in digital photography because many eBay sellers of Helioses are modding some to have a square aperture as well.
Yes! Indeed, I made my square filter (it can also be rotated for that diamond shape) to try and recreate the ME-1 look, with my Zenitar M, without the cost.
You produced a very sophisticated and well structured video with some for me new perspectives (especially reg. the relationship between painting and photography - something what never before came into my mind). Such an analysis of the evolution of artsy image perception (triggered by progress in technology, especially photography) I had never seen before. Thank you for this interesting perspective.
10 out of 10 for content, delivery, and general sound knowledge. Keep up the good work.
I love this film putting much-needed perspective to this topic. Looking at the history of photography and its changing relationships with fine art, and also the attitude of artists, historically, to blur, is most illuminating.
As a landscape and macro photographer I encounter the ecstatic "ooh, ooooh, such CREEEAAAAMY bokeh" as if the roundness and softness of the blurry circles is almost of itself the hallmark of an "artistic" or "painterly" photo. But often it is just like a bad imitation of an impressionist painting. Like always smoothing out the sea or a lake by very long exposure, or feeling that a vignette is virtually compulsory, something with the kernel of a good idea becomes fashionable and then gets slowly debased to clichée. I noticed though that you gave the time of day to a number of broken shapes, but most photographers (and also lens reviewers) find anything other than circles unacceptable, a total no-no. So thanks for your enlightenment, and your choice of art works to back up your points, and the wisdom of your experience!
Thank you for your videos Simon, I appreciate the time you have spent putting these together and I am looking forward to seeing some info on your wider lens category experiences.
Great, one of the best videos about this topic. I especially appreciate the information about art and history and different vintage lenses.
One of the most fascinating discussions ice heard in a while. Thanks!
What an excellent video. Thanks for putting this together.
Love this. 10/10 for narration! Love the format - it feels original. Loved the content too! Thank you for your thoughts.
Thank you so much for your kind words, they mean a lot to me.
Hey man I loved the video and I bought the Helios 44-2 because of you. Also thanks to you I'm looking into vintages lenses now!
Exellent explained and composed video highly informative and great to view and listen. All examples and comments are right on the target. I enjoyed this immenslly. Thank you for sharing this amazing view of your toughta and insights from your research. ❤
I really can’t tell you just how much I enjoy your videos. Extraordinary, thanks. They hit the mark. Intelligent and thoughtful, enough history and detail, relevant technical when necessary.
While the word “bokeh” to describe the subjective quality of out-of-focus areas is relatively recent, and the distinctions that allow us to qualify good or better bokeh tend to be elusive, there is absolutely nothing new or recent about the placement and extent of out-of-focus areas in photographic composition. Older cameras like the Rolleiflex, along with a larger film size and a waist-level viewfinder to avoid composing through a keyhole, also had an intuitive and easy to use depth of field scale on the focus knob, allowing very controlled depth composition, and photographers all knew and used the 2/3 rule for focus depth control. This level of control actually became lost to some degree as SLR cameras made it more difficult to visualize (the preview button on most SLRs being a direct but hard to see visualization). Early digital cameras, with their tiny sensors essentially eliminated the subject altogether, as everything is in focus - a flatness that still characterizes most people’s camera- phone photography - but interest is definitely rekindling with the use of larger sensors and the “rediscovery” of what was always a principle aspect of photographic composition pre-digital. I too did a study many years ago of classical painting to see if and where they may have used out-of-focus to control backgrounds. Knowing that many painters had used a Camera Obscura, I felt they “must” have observed it, but I concluded this aesthetic treatment was simply not appreciated or sought after in most of classical painting, and as such may be considered a “new” compositional aesthetic introduced by photography.
Thank you for your comments, and especially your observations about focus depth control. I very much enjoyed reading this.
@@Simonsutak Thank you.
A brilliant video. Love your addition of painting. In the late 70's and in the 80's what also interested me; very crisp and sharp B&W people pictures and, on the other hand, soft focus color nudes using various diffusion and fog filters. Of course, glamor magazine pictures with strobes, umbrellas and studio backdrops. So much creativity over the years. So many influences to try and to practice over the years. Grateful.
The most illuminating 20 minutes of video that I've seen since recently taking up photography again. I'd never heard about bokeh until I picked up a camera again and you've filled in all the gaps since I was taught to stop down to sharpen my images. Thanks for pointing out that the artistic use of bokeh is subjective as I've seen a lot of videos talking b@lls about bokeh balls, with opinions being passed off as the right way to do things, and which was the best type of bokeh rendered by which lenses (typically the ones for those with deep pockets). Thank you Simon, for much needed clarity.
Love the positive mindset in this :) And I loved learning that photographers didn't shoot wide open as often some time ago.
A really well thought out and produced video. Thank you.
An excellent, thoughtful and detailed discussion. With some really nice images as support.
Absolutely wonderful video. I really appreciate your videos. They're extremely well informed and enjoyable to watch. Thank you.
I loved this video.
What a great idea to take on a brief history of our evolving perspective on our world and how we represent it. Perhaps the mystery we humans crave may found in the blur. For me, the best photographs juxtapose ideas and maintain creative internal tension. Bokeh does this, naturally. It obscures and tantalizes. It dethrones the 'object' in focus by suggesting there's more. Sometimes, I think of racecar drivers. The faster they go, the smaller and more central their focus becomes because they cannot take in that much visual information. As the pace of information coming at us in our world increases, so must the blur. My own interest in bokeh suggests to me that no matter how busy, crazy or overwhelming life can be, there's beauty in the blur. Those painters you referenced showed life they way they saw it. Mine has lot of blur and with the right lens, it can have bubbles too!
Keep making these fun, thought-provoking videos!!
You started with the same camera as I did,and around the same time. My journey has many parrallels with yours,love your take on this subject and wishing you all the best for the new year ahead.
Thank you for taking "bokeh" from the hands of the UA-cam camera sales channels and putting in firmly in the hands of the creative. Loved your presentation and look forward to all your talks. Now of to your Flickr collection.......
Thank you! It's interesting how the camera/lens makers like to promote how their lenses achieve "a perfect balance between sharpness and smooth/natural bokeh"....and then they show examples (including bubble bokeh) that are more creative than natural.
thank you for these videos. I haven't touched a real camera for decades and only did it for my slide portfolio of my work. Your videos are really helping me understand what I am seeing now that digital photography allows me to see more quickly what I am trying to do than I was able to do 30 years ago. Thanks
These informational videos are just awesome man, ty for this contents
Terrific video. Highly instructional and beautifully presented. Thanks
Very enjoyable and informative, thank you.
Excellent discussion, thank you!
Thank you Simon, you've given me a new idea to indulge myself with. Just ordered a M42 to Sony A mount adapter so I can pull out my Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens on my Pentax Spotmatic that has been lying unused decades ... can't wait to play with it on my Sony full frame DSLR
It's a fun one, I've been using it a lot for portraits lately. It's not so easy to keep in focus though.
exemplary presentation; I could not have said it better myself, nor can I think of some else that could have - much gratitude and respect, to you!
Many thanks for your kind words!
This is a really well done take on the phenomenon of bokeh. I imagine that the rise of autofocus also contributed to this since the razor thin depth of focus becomes so much less of an inhibitor to getting the subject sharp when shooting wide open for other reasons.
didn't know messy bokeh can be so beautiful ... thanks for sharing
Simon,
Great talk. Very informative and, for me, thought provoking. I'm a relative newcomer to photography at 65. Mostly interested in wildlife photography and in that birds. To hear most talk as if bokeh was always the measure, or a measure of a fine image. It was very refreshing to hear otherwise.
I'm excited to hear that photography as an art form is alive and still unfolding.
Great video! Super interesting
Bokeh 101... nice to hear some crystallized thoughts on the matter. Thanks.
This was an excellent report and presentation! A gift to the planet. This elevated UA-cam! I have sub to this channel.
Very interesting video, thanks. Certainly these days, fast primes are tuned to be sharper at the fast end, which is the reason people buy them in the first place, whereas older or consumer lenses are tuned more for the middle, f5.6 or f8. The star shape of early fast lenses from Zeiss or Canon was to compensate for the focus shift on rangefinders like the Leicas. In the film days, a fast lens meant you could shoot with slower film, and hence less grain, in less than ideal conditions, but obviously the creative potential was quickly explored.
It’s slightly ironic you use Vermeer in your example as he is believed to have used a Camera Obscura for the few surviving paintings we have of his, all made inside his house, and the one landscape was the view out of his window. Which makes sense when you consider how large those things were. A clue to its use is ironically Bokeh, since he painted what was projected faithfully, including camera blur and speculate highlights (bokeh balls), which you don’t see from painters directly observing an object. Which is not to say he was trying to paint bokeh, it is slight and merely an artefact of the process.
I first started utilizing the bokeh effect in 1970 as a staff photographer at a stock photo agency in London.The Japanese term "Bokeh" was not known to us back then, so one of the agency librarians came up with the term "Circles of confusion" which stuck for some years. I was given an assignment of producing still life images suitable for Christmas cards which I shot on a 10 x 8 inch film studio camera using Kodak Ektachrome transparency film. By using long garlands of Christmas tinsel I was able to hang them in the background, and I also made a circle of it with some wire to shoot through. The subjects were often Christmas candles, baubles, and even cute kittens and puppies. Because the lens was so big, I was able place text between the glass elements, such as "Happy Christmas," which meant that the message was repeated in every bokeh bubble. Now that I am retired, I just use my iPhone 12 Pro Max, but can still achieve the bokeh effect by using the portrait mode on f1.4 with of course the right lighting effect.
Great description and detailed historical overview of the topic
Great video. Well thought through and presented. Interesting point about fast lenses in the film era being all about shooting in low light rather than creating blur. We are spoilt for choice with digital cameras with hugely variable Iso and cheap ND filters to shoot wide open no matter the conditions.!!
Thanks Simon for your work, insight and sharing !!!
Love the video, especially the discussion about art history and the use of camera obscura. I think the only thing missing is cinema's use of selective focus. I know in my life, some of the earliest and most striking examples of bokeh and selective focus were in movies, where various technical constraints force a lot of wide-open shooting with extremely fast prime lenses. I suspect that may have had an impact on lens designs for stills in the film era, and why there are so many nice bokeh lenses from that time.
Very insightful and interesting discussion
I would say the 1st time i became aware of out of focus backgrounds as an artistic effect was as a child in the 80's watching movies. I remember asking my mum why it looked like that and her explaining it to me.
Great video! Bokeh is very cool, one of my favorite cameras the Polaroid SX-70 creates diamond-shaped bokeh because of the uniquely shaped shutter blades.
Super informative video, your channel is amazing. Thank you for producing this.
Love your videos, Simon, you have a great narration voice and your videos are highly watchable. You've made me think about overdoing the bokeh and keeping the background looking more natural in my photos.
I love this channel even though I’m happy if my snapshots come out at all!
You gave me a new perspective on the 'obscured by clouds' album art.
You end this video saying "that's my view anyway". I disagree. You are too thorough in this subject to sum it up just as a view. This is by far the best video I have ever seen about bokeh in photography. Really impressive, thank you!
I really enjoy your videos.... keep it going.
Having started in film and then shot mostly digital for the last decade plus i had actually forgotten how unusual it was for me to shoot below f4 innthe film days. Lovely study of Bokeh.
I was hooked on bokeh ever since the opening of Taxi Driver
Outstanding video...
I love photography. Thank you sir for shring your knowledge. It really made my mind to be more creative. This video will surely take photography to another level.❤️
Fairly new to the channel. Really loving it. Im also an adapted lens enthusiast, out of them all, I still prefer the uniqueness of the meyer - optik oreston!
Very informative video. The last year or so I have been doing astrophotography and a few of my peers have been using various techniques to add diffraction spikes to star images to give their pictures an artistic flair.
Many classical painters, including Da Vinci and certainly Claude Lorraine, used a technique knows as aerial perspective, after noticing that colors become more muted as they recede. They recreated this effect, and while it was more about color, it also reduced contrast, and thus, made backgrounds softer. That's probably why the Mona Lisa's background looks the way it does. Bokeh is really just an enhanced version of this natural visual effect, which is probably one why our brains are able to process it as something that looks good.
Simon, you're brilliant.
Excellent video - been really enjoying your channel! I started learning photography on 35mm but just picked up a mirrorless camera for more general use and video, looking forward to testing out more vintage lenses on it! Currently using it with my Zuiko lenses :)
This is so bizarre and interesting history of it. I have been taking pics since early 80s and back then it was simply called depth of field. I had a friend start to get into photography in mid 2000s and stalled it bokeh. I said you mean depth of field? But I have always been more towards wide open shallow depth of field shots than ones with larger depth of field personally. So interesting to see you break down history that it's a relatively new phenomenon of style. I know you used painting for comparison, but my interest came from movies, especially as they have creatively used it for quite some time to tell stories and force focus of the viewer in scenes. Now makes me want to go back and watch some older films and see when it became more popular.
Back in the good old days of film photographers had much more points of composition in mind. Bokeh is a primary digital concept, which don't exist in this special way before. Classical concepts were more aware to devide lines, composing more with diagonals and perspective and colors. The blurr was only an additional item to get a clear separation of the scene. Classic portraits were taken mostly with dark backgrounds or a decent and mostly sophisticated lighting.
Personally I think, that the classic photography offers more ways to get the individual picture. Bokeh concentrates on visual effects, which overwhelms sometimes the real subject.
40 years of film photography didn't change my mind.... and yes, I use although Jupiter, Industar and Helios Lenses along with my FD's.... but in a more classical way.
And:
Great review of the subject!
It's funny that modern lenses are so focused on very smooth bokeh that they even have those "DS" lenses to create even more smooth bokeh to the point I find the image look somehow plain and tedious, and they are much more expensive than it's regular version.
Yes, they are in danger of producing results similar to an iPhone bokeh filter!
Well done Simon. Is a great tutorial. You can find sometimes on ebay lenses with square or elips apperture blades. They are lovely. I have a square one on a Helios 44.2. The most are made on the Helios lenses.
Very interesting and enlightening - thank you very much!
What a great video
Ive just watched the first half, and I give you my hat, for your presentation, researc and your silky voice
I still wish I had a full frame camera so I could do some bokeh shots of my g/f
Thanks for posting and well said! Personally I really like bokeh shots - especially where the bokeh somehow balances the main subject. Super smooth uniform bokeh (like I have seen with other peoples HD DFA* 50 f1.4) is great for isolating a subject and works well when there is a significant main subject to bring attention to. But then a random subject with bokeh that has more character can also work really well. Even mirror lens donuts can look great when the scene and subject is right. I have a shot I like of water droplets at night on a window and its the colourful light bokeh behind that really makes the shot. I really like your swirly shots taken with the 44-2 too - I find the lens a bit hit and miss and needs the right background for it to work well.
Thank you! I agree about the 44-2, it's more of a fair (sunny) weather lens, where the composition/background, as you say, is very important.
Bokehgon. Word of the year.
Nice and interesting video. While we had lenses back in the analogue manual focus days that could produce nice bokeh wide open, we didn't really have very good focusing aids in general to nail a so thin focusing plane to where it needed to be. Even with the introduction of autofocus, the precision wasn't really there in the beginning. It was first with digital cameras, especially mirrorless ones, with the possibility for continuous autofocus with Eye-AF and when used with manual focus lenses the possibility to zoom into magnification view that we could more easily work with razor thin depth of field and still nail it exactly where we wanted the sharpness. I think this very much contributes to the popularity in the later years.
This is a really good point - that I missed in the video. I've been playing with a top down viewfinder Praktica FX2 recently, and it's surprising how poor the image is for focusing etc. It's a bit better with a split screen guide on later film cameras, but still difficult. And now, as you write, we can zoom in on images using the camera to focus small areas with extremely narrow depth of fields. Cheers, Simon
@@Simonsutak It is not just for (vintage) manual focus lenses the new mirrorless technology is good. I actually bought an Olympus camera in 2013 since they had Eye-AF autofocus already then just to be able to do shallow depth of field portraits with autofocus lenses. Now all manufacturers have mirrorless cameras and continuous Eye-AF, not just for stills but also in video. I guess this soon will trickle down to a new Bokeh trend in scenes involving movement in Hollywood reels.
Great information, very helpful...
Really interesting and well done sir! Really enjoyed watching. Btw, your voice is really soothing to listen to and would be perfect for professional narration!👌
Bokeh was invented by Michael Johnson in 1997 (IIRC). It is doubtless named for Bo-Keh, the Japanese god of fuzzy concepts. It has the distinction of being the only "artistic" quality you can buy. And now we have "Bokeh Balls" which photographers actually call specular highlights, and have done so for decades.
I suspect that it's more shallow depth of field than "bokeh" that attracts the contemporary creators and audience. I believe you were spot on in your description of how we handled depth of field in the past, but generally, the imaging plane was 35mm film, so everyone was on the same playing field and just getting the dang image in focus was paramount (so we often used smaller apertures). As digital cameras became common (and consumer camcorders), sensors tended to be smaller and everything was in focus. Then affordable cameras with sensors as large as APS-C and even MFT (and now obviously "full frame"), offer a way to stand out and escape the images that anyone could so easily produce from a cheap camcorder or camera phone. The shallow depth of field simply looked high end, unique, and "professional". Now that shallow depth of field is more common, the quality of it has become an interest... hello, bokeh.
Great ideas for thought! 👍🏾
06:00 I recall at maximum pupil diameter of 7mm in a young adult our eye is about f/4.5. As we age out pupil gets less flexible and will not open that wide... so even slower. This from a light gathering perspective calculating usable magnification in telescopes and binoculars.
Insightful content. Very well developed. Thank you ❤️