What is Bokeh?
Bokeh, also known as "Boke" is one of the most popular subjects in photography. The reason why it is so popular, is because Bokeh adds depth and dimension to a photograph, making it visually appealing and forcing us to focus our attention on a particular area of the image. The word comes from Japanese, which literally translates as "blur".
1) What is Bokeh?
Basically, bokeh is the rendering of out-of-focus areas by a camera lens. It is the background blur that we are so used to seeing in photography, that separates a subject in the foreground from the often busy background. This subject isolation adds depth to an otherwise plain, two-dimensional photograph, pleasing our eyes and our perception of the image. Bokeh has infiltrated not only photography, but also motion picture. You might not have noticed, but next time you watch a Hollywood movie, pay attention to how they intentionally separate the main character and blur the background, so that we know where to look and focus our eyes on.
Bokeh
2) How to get Bokeh
So, how do you get a bokeh effect on your camera? Since bokeh is solely a lens effect, it really depends on the type of a lens you are using. Pretty much any lens, except for some ultrawide and fisheye lenses, is capable of producing bokeh. The question is how good of a bokeh a lens can produce and it really varies lens by lens. While lower-end consumer zoom lenses will yield unpleasant bokeh, fixed (prime) lenses and most professional zoom lenses with fast apertures (aperture is a hole inside the lens through which the light enters the camera) yield extremely good-looking bokeh. To see the bokeh of your lens, simply focus on an object from a very close distance (as close as the lens will allow, keeping the object in focus), making sure that there are no objects at least 5-6 feet behind it. Make sure to be on the same level as the object itself, so that you are not looking down on it. Do not use a plain wall as your background - try to find a colorful background, preferably with some lights on it. A Christmas tree is a perfect background for a bokeh test. Once you find a good test subject with a suitable background, set your camera to "Aperture Priority" mode and set your aperture to the lowest number. On most consumer zoom lenses, the lowest aperture is typically f/3.5, while on prime and professional zoom lenses, it can be between f/1.2 and f/2.8. Once the aperture is set to the lowest value, take a picture of your subject and take a look at the rear LCD of your camera. The subject should be in focus, while the background is blurred. The background blur is your lens bokeh. If you have a good lens, the bokeh should look soft and fuzzy, looking pleasing to the eye.
Why isn't there bokeh on ultrawide and fisheye lenses? It is extremely challenging, and sometimes impossible, to get any sort of bokeh on ultrawide and fisheye lenses, because they have short focal lengths and are designed to bring everything to focus. Landscape photographers like to use these types of lenses, because it is very important for them to make the entire scene sharp - starting from the blooming flower in the foreground, all the way to the trees and mountains in the very back. The portion of the scene that appears sharp in a picture is called "depth of field" in photography.
Take a look at this photograph that I captured in Arches National Park:
No Bokeh
Since the entire scene is in focus (starting from the bushes and the dead tree in the foreground to rock formations a little further behind and snowy mountains in the far back), the depth of field on this picture is very large. It starts from the nearest object and extends all the way to infinity, making everything look sharp and clear. Obviously, there is no bokeh in this picture and I wouldn't want it to have one.
However, portrait, macro and telephoto lenses with large apertures are a completely different story - they have longer focal length and large apertures, which means that they can handle very shallow depth of field. They are designed to be able to separate the subject and make it stand out.
Here is a photograph of the Harris's Hawk that I captured with a telephoto lens at a large aperture, allowing me to completely blur the background:
Completely isolated subject
Because the background is completely blurred, the attention of the viewer is focused directly on the hawk and nothing else.
Here is another example of a beautiful bokeh that was produced by a telephoto lens:
Beautiful Bokeh
3) What is bad bokeh?
Although a lot of people argue that there is no such thing as a bad bokeh, I still call whatever distracts my eyes "bad":
Bad Bokeh
Open up the larger version of the above image and see for yourself - the background looks very distracting and the blur is not pleasant to the eye. That's what I call bad bokeh and it does spoil the picture (although this photograph by itself is not a work of art, either).
3) Bokeh vs Motion Blur
But bokeh is not just simply the background blur by itself, because blur could also be achieved by motion blur - something you can do by simply moving the lens, zooming in and out or photographing a scene at longer exposures. Motion blur is NOT the same thing is bokeh.
4) What lenses create great bokeh?
There are many lenses that create great-looking bokeh. Most fast prime lenses with round-blade apertures such as Nikon 85mm f/1.4D or Canon 85mm f/1.2II USM create exceptionally good-looking bokeh. The lower-cost version of the same lens - Nikon 85mm f/1.8D and Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM also produce beautiful bokeh. One of my favorite lenses for beautiful bokeh is also the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G, but be careful about the older Nikon 50mm f/1.4D or the 50mm f/1.8D, since they both produce bokeh in the shape of an octagon, due to the diaphragm of the lens. There are too many lenses to list, so I recommend doing some more research on different lenses, based on your photography needs.
5) Other examples of bokeh
Here are some other examples of great-looking bokeh:
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