[BigMackCam]

Indubitably, unequivocally yes as far as I'm concerned and I'll happily explain why.

I've been taking photos for 50+ years and this (to me) incredibly annoying phenomenon has only been a thing for the last few years, especially since the new generation of Instagram/Lomography fans decided that buying cheap nasty plastic cameras, or spending 50 of whatever your local currency is on a prime lens for a £$€1000+ camera body were good ideas.

Now I wouldn't especially argue with the second one since it helps with the budget and gives new life to old otherwise redundant kit, but please e don't think you need an excuse to do it.

So that's the annoyance factor, exacerbated by an onslaught of social media postings on the subject.

The second factor is also about annoyance... According to traditional photographic wisdom, background - especially out of focus - features in one of two ways; either not at all (as in fill the frame with your subject), or as a contrast to an isolated subject sitting, for example, on a rule of thirds intersection, in which case the background should not be distracting.

It's my experience that people all too frequently go out of their way to feature a background that's (1) overwhelmingly disproportionately large, and (2) full of these dreadful, annoying and distracting 'bokeh balls' cos they're a thing innit.

Seriously people, unless your specialism is night-time urban photography, or recording winsome waifs in dappled woodland settings then please give it a rest. I for one couldn't care less about your balls. Indeed I would say that anyone trumpeting "look at the bokeh in my photo!" is as likely as not to be taking substandard photos with poorly considered composition. An out of focus background (to give it it's proper English description) has it's time, place and function but these days it's vastly overused and misunderstood in my opinion.

Rant over.

Why not let others enjoy photography their way, and you can enjoy it your way? Life's tough enough, especially these days. We should be happy that folks can find some fun engaging in this hobby of ours, however they choose. There's no need for any of us to be judgemental of other photographers, and no justification for us to feel superior because our preferences and methods are different. Acceptance and tolerance are always laudable qualities, and heaven knows we need more of both right now.

I was going to describe the range of equipment I shoot (which includes $1,000+ cameras, $1,000+ lenses, sub-$50 lenses, "cheap nasty" Lomography cameras and more), how I shoot them and why... but then I thought, why should I explain? It's my hobby to enjoy on my terms. What anyone else might think of my personal choices and tastes has zero relevance to me.

One of the things I value most about PentaxForums is being part of a friendly, supportive community. I'd like to think most of our fellow members here value that too...

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 06-16-2022 at 07:18 AM.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

Bokeh is exploiting the shortcomings of a lens in clever way. That is what makes it art, I repeat this, because I said the same in that other thread. And the result thereoff is (usually) an interesting/beautiful/devastating picture of a subject: see Rondec's post #10.

[pepperberry farm]

Why not let others enjoy photography their way, and you can enjoy it your way? Life's tough enough, especially these days. We should be happy that folks can find some fun engaging in this hobby of ours, however they choose. There's no need for any of us to be judgemental of other photographers, and no justification for us to feel superior because our preferences and methods are different. Acceptance and tolerance are always laudable qualities, and heaven knows we need more of both right now.

I was going to describe the range of equipment I shoot (which includes $1,000+ cameras, $1,000+ lenses, sub-$50 lenses, "cheap nasty" Lomography cameras and more), how I shoot them and why... but then I thought, why should I explain? It's my hobby to enjoy on my terms. What anyone else might think of my personal choices and tastes has zero relevance to me.

One of the things I value most about PentaxForums is being part of a friendly, supportive community. I'd like to think most of our fellow members here value that too...

that is perfect...

we can close this thread now....

[Digitalis]

Quite a few people went crazy creating documents that looked like ransom notes

Now you get people writing their resumes in Comic sans. ugh.

[clickclick]

I'd say don't get hung up on semantics. Many things come into play as to what one finds pleasing. Certainly some lenses tend to render out of focus areas more "busy" than others, and depending on what the subject and intent is, that may or may not matter. Rondec's post is a nice example of a pleasing photo where the background adds instead of detracts from the image, but it's far more than just having some bubbles in the background.

[ramseybuckeye]

Now you get people writing their resumes in Comic sans. ugh.

It’s better than the ones in Old English or Black Hand.

[Wheatfield]

I too have have been taking photos since the 70's, so by the OP's reasoning my opinion is equally valid

Personally, I like like bokeh. I see it as one one of the things that differentiates photography from what we see with our own eyes; in other words, the difference between the purely documentary and the aspiration towards art.

Mike Johnston, who was the editor for what I considered the best photography magazine on the market through the 1980s (I believe it was Camera and Darkroom) and is now hosting a blog site called The Online Photographer brought the term bokeh to the western photography world in the 1980s.
So if you don't like bokeh, blame him and send him a cat picture.

As an aside, bokeh isn't the out of focus areas, it's the quality of those out of focus areas.

[pepperberry farm]

As an aside, bokeh isn't the out of focus areas, it's the quality of those out of focus areas.

exactly - it's entirely subjective...

I suppose we could blame Mike for it....

without him, would "bokeh" have happened anyways???

[MossyRocks]

I don't hate bokeh balls but do think that they get overdone a lot now. Personally I always like them on illuminated trees during the holidays and sometimes will just shoot a massively out of focus shot of a Christmas tree just to have a tree shaped pile of colored bokeh balls and do it at f/1.2. However there I am actually making and choosing that as my subject and the brightness of the balls is what separates the subject from the background.

[pepperberry farm]

I also seem to remember a recent story about a certain class of "influencers" that had been convinced to scrape rocks across the front element of their lenses to improve their bokeh experience....

[biz-engineer]

Why not let others enjoy photography their way, and you can enjoy it your way?

I guess boKeh balls are like AI software: annoying to some people

One of the things I value most about PentaxForums is being part of a friendly

I fully compassionately and friendlinessly acknowledge the OP distress with regards to his observation of the "group think" mentality that's happening about bokeh balls in social media.

[BigMackCam]

I guess boKeh balls are like AI software: annoying to some people

I had a feeling you might reply along those lines, biz...

You're referring, of course, to my recent thread on AI software... but if you re-read my original post in that thread, you'll note that I not once claimed to be annoyed by the software, nor was I judegmental of folks who use it (why should I be? it doesn't affect me). I didn't vent any frustration because there was none to vent... All I said is that I don't yet trust AI image processing tools because of what I consider to be content replacement rather than enhancement... yet I was clear in stating that I do find them useful.

So... it's really an entirely different angle....

I fully compassionately and friendlinessly acknowledge the OP distress with regards to his observation of the "group think" mentality that's happening about bokeh balls in social media.

Sarcasm towards my statement on friendliness in the forums doesn't present you in the best light, biz

[gofour3]

Now you get people writing their resumes in Comic sans. ugh.

I think my last resume was done on a typewriter........ (Been at the same job for almost 40 years)

Phil.

[JohnMc]

I think my last resume was done on a typewriter........ (Been at the same job for almost 40 years)

Phil.

The Sincerity Machine can fix your problem then!

[AgentL]

Indubitably, unequivocally yes as far as I'm concerned and I'll happily explain why.

I've been taking photos for 50+ years and this (to me) incredibly annoying phenomenon has only been a thing for the last few years, especially since the new generation of Instagram/Lomography fans decided that buying cheap nasty plastic cameras, or spending 50 of whatever your local currency is on a prime lens for a £$€1000+ camera body were good ideas.

Now I wouldn't especially argue with the second one since it helps with the budget and gives new life to old otherwise redundant kit, but please e don't think you need an excuse to do it.

So that's the annoyance factor, exacerbated by an onslaught of social media postings on the subject.

The second factor is also about annoyance... According to traditional photographic wisdom, background - especially out of focus - features in one of two ways; either not at all (as in fill the frame with your subject), or as a contrast to an isolated subject sitting, for example, on a rule of thirds intersection, in which case the background should not be distracting.

It's my experience that people all too frequently go out of their way to feature a background that's (1) overwhelmingly disproportionately large, and (2) full of these dreadful, annoying and distracting 'bokeh balls' cos they're a thing innit.

Seriously people, unless your specialism is night-time urban photography, or recording winsome waifs in dappled woodland settings then please give it a rest. I for one couldn't care less about your balls. Indeed I would say that anyone trumpeting "look at the bokeh in my photo!" is as likely as not to be taking substandard photos with poorly considered composition. An out of focus background (to give it it's proper English description) has it's time, place and function but these days it's vastly overused and misunderstood in my opinion.

Rant over.

Here's my theory about bokeh. You all ready? Good.

I think excessive out of focus blur began to be a positive, sought-after thing when consumer SLRs began to be more easily afforded and available to a wider cross-section of the photographer world. Going from cheaper cameras with built-in lenses, the widely available 1.8/50 lenses (and similar) offered a look and feel that was different than people were used to. Images were sharper, wider apertures meant motion blur and shake could be avoided to a greater degree, and newcomers probably didn't stop down as much as their fixed-lens cameras had in the past. This grew an aesthetic among new SLR (and, to a degree, rangefinder) users which they kind of stuck with. The out of focus blur was a way of glorying in the "better" lens and thereby was something people liked to look at. This popular move towards lots of blur became reinforced when DSLRs began to take the market by storm, because, again, consumer digital cameras had been small-chip, low-resolution compacts for several years before the APS-C DSLR became widely available at a decent price. All the digital adopters had bought something like the 2mp Olympus Camedia that I had. So, when the APS-C camera with a variable zoom lens became affordable, and cheap "nifty fifties" were recommended as the next step (even though the 75mm FoV they created was a little less useful), there was a move back to the capability of bokeh, and more enthusiasm ensued.

I have no idea whether I'm right, but this is my working theory.