Originally posted by ZombieArmy I'm not reading an 8 page thread but I'll drop my opinion here. My issue with bokeh isn't bokeh itself, I think it's a tool and it's good at creating subject isolation, depth, and a certain feeling to the photo. However I do think there's a trend that it basically becomes the only way for some people to create this effect. Realistically I think it is becoming a crutch for photographers and people should branch out and try to find some interesting backgrounds and use good lighting technique rather than just blur it all away.
There's a lot of ways to do photography you know.
I think that the perception of a "trend" is a little misleading.
What we are seeing is a "trend" of using old glass. People never thought about this in the film days and early digital.
But the thing about old primes is the only way to differentiate their performance from modern zooms is to utililise them wide open or near to it where kit zooms can't follow.
A legacy lens at f8 is going to look no different from modern glass.
So it is inevitable that wide open characteristics is going to be the subject of discussion with old glass.
Hence the bokeh characteristics.