Bokeh - Description

Description

Although difficult to quantify, some lenses enhance overall image quality by producing more subjectively pleasing out-of-focus areas. Good bokeh is especially important for large-aperture lenses, macro lenses, and long telephoto lenses because they are typically used with a shallow depth of field. Bokeh is also important for medium telephoto "portrait lenses" (typically 85–150 mm on 35 mm format) because in portraiture photography, the photographer typically seeks to obtain a shallow depth of field to achieve an out-of-focus background and make the subject stand out.

Bokeh characteristics may be quantified by examining the image's circle of confusion. In out-of-focus areas, each point of light becomes an image of the aperture, generally a more or less round disc. Depending how a lens is corrected for spherical aberration, the disc may be uniformly illuminated, brighter near the edge, or brighter near the center. Lenses that are poorly corrected for spherical aberration will show one kind of disc for out-of-focus points in front of the plane of focus, and a different kind for points behind. This may actually be desirable, as blur circles that are dimmer near the edges produce less-defined shapes which blend smoothly with the surrounding image. Lens manufacturers including Nikon, Minolta, and Sony make lenses designed with specific controls to change the rendering of the out-of-focus areas.

The shape of the aperture has an influence on the subjective quality of bokeh as well. For conventional lens designs (with bladed apertures), when a lens is stopped down smaller than its maximum aperture size (minimum f-number), out-of-focus points are blurred into the polygonal shape formed by the aperture blades. This is most apparent when a lens produces hard-edged bokeh. For this reason, some lenses have many aperture blades and/or blades with curved edges to make the aperture more closely approximate a circle rather than a polygon. Minolta has been on the forefront of promoting and introducing lenses with near-ideal circular apertures since 1987, but most other manufacturers now offer lenses with shape-optimized diaphragms, at least for the domain of portraiture photography. In contrast, a catadioptric telephoto lens renders bokehs resembling doughnuts, because its secondary mirror blocks the central part of the aperture opening. Recently, photographers have exploited the shape of the bokeh by creating a simple mask out of card with shapes such as hearts or stars, that the photographer wishes the bokeh to be, and placing it over the lens.

Leica lenses, especially vintage ones, are often claimed to excel in bokeh quality, although Leica photographers have tended to make more use of maximum aperture due to the lenses' ability to maintain good sharpness at wide openings and the suitability of the Leica camera system for available-light theatre work and reportage. This reputation is founded on the excellence of Leitz/Leica pre-war lenses, which were at the forefront of complex mathematical design and manufacturing know-how, at a time when all computations and glass making were done by hand.

The Minolta/Sony STF 135mm f/2.8 (with STF standing for smooth trans focus) is a lens which is specifically designed to produce pleasing bokeh. An apodization filter is used to soften the aperture edges which results in a smooth defocused area with gradually fading circles. Those qualities make it the only lens of this kind currently on the market.

The Nikon 105 mm DC and 135 mm DC lenses (DC stands for "Defocus Control") have a control ring that permits the over-correction or under-correction of spherical aberration to change the bokeh in front of and behind the focal plane.