# Is Bokeh overrated?



## VidThreeNorth

"Bokeh is overrated" posted by "Denae & Andrew", Oct 25, 2018

Another attempt to debunk a fad.  I don't think his findings were as surprising as the Northrup's "color science" survey, but it is worth thinking about.


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## Ysarex

Couldn't get through it -- too stupid. Don't think it would help even if he knew what bokeh is.

Joe


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## Derrel

An awful video...because he is using *multiple* terms incorrectly. There is bokeh. There is depth of field. There is background blur. There is selective focus. These are four known terms. MANY people confuse _selective focus_ with bokeh. Many people cannot understand what shallow depth of field is, as opposed to the quality of the out of focus areas. Most people are unaware of what background blur means. The video presenter in this case is NOT using the term bokeh correctly, and does not understand photography well enough to give valid opinions on anything worth committing to memory.

It is possible to get identical depth of field, and the same-sized subject magnification, with two different lens lengths--and to have one lens that has VERY deeply de-focused background rendering! Background blur is determined by absolute focal length and the width of the lens aperture. LONG lenses, like 300mm and 400mm, have very WIDE apertures at, for example, f/4.5. At f/4.5, an 85mm lens has the same relative aperture (f/4.5), but that aperture f/value is MUCH narrower than the f/4.5 value is for a longer, 300mm lens; by changing the camera-to-subject distance, farther with the 300mm, and closer with the 85mm lens, it's possible to get the same depth of field of a foreground object, and the same picture size of the object--with the 300mm lens giving a wayyyyyyy defocused background, and the 85mm lens giving a moderately-recognizable degree of background blurring.

Background blurring is also determined by sensor or film size, and lens lengths used...Background blur and its relationship to sensor size

The issues involved are complicated. When a YouTuber cannot use the vocabulary _correctly_, and spouts nonsense,half-truths, and BS, I have no willingness to spend my time on his or her junk videos.

This entire area demands careful study, and there is soooooo much mis-information and half-truth and confusion around, that MOST of the "authorities" of the last 10 years are using misinformation,and are repeating nonsense. Even here on TPF, you'd better be very careful of who you listen to on this subject. Because I have seen many threads here, for over a decade, that are FILLEd with misinformation on this subject, terms, principles, etc.


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## Braineack

dude shot the video wide open.


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## Tim Tucker 2

I watched a bit of it and it seems to confuse two separate issues.

1) The use of background blur.

2) The subjective quality of that blur.

The first issue is a bit of a non-issue and the debate regarding it is a bit non-sensical. It is a strange trait that we as photographers tend to think we *control* images by that which we understand and can control. We tend to believe that the images we make are defined by those things which we can control, such as choices of camera settings, PP techniques, lenses, etc. They are not, image are more defined by how the image jogs, or relates to the viewer's memory and experience, not your choice of aperture. Take the image below, the impression is one of a sharp image but most of it is out of focus. It works because of the expression and how we relate to that expression through our experience of dealing with people and what we've learnt that expression to mean. It works because of our memory and experience of looking at human faces and what we expect to see when we view them, that the eyes will always appear sharper than the skin, (having a thin film of moisture they will always have a higher acutance against a softer skin). If you reversed that you would have a portrait that is not how we expect to see it, with softer eyes, and it would be counter to our memory and experience of what we expect to see when we view a human face and look wrong or *out of focus*.






The actual aperture can be varied quite a bit and makes little to no difference to how your audience responds to the image as long as you present something that they can relate to in a way that's consistent with what they expect to see and how they expect to see it. Aperture and shutter speed do not define the image, it is how the finished image relates to our experience of what we have seen in the past. Take an image of a storm from a beach with a long enough shutter speed and you transform it into an image of calm simply because what you present is more consistent with our memory and experience of what a calm day looks like than it is of what a stormy day does. Movement and flow in streams by long exposure is an abstract and something we don't see. It is controlled more by how we have learnt to interpret photographic images through exposure to them than the actual shutter speed used. There is no effect of using *shutter speed _x_* that has an *absolute meaning _y_* in photography but only how it relates to your experience and memory of what you've seen before and what it reminds you of.

I wish we would get past this ridiculous argument of it being the things we control on the camera that controls the image. We should start looking at the subject and understand how we relate to what we see, not look at the camera and try to define the image in terms of how *it* sees. Cameras and settings are largely transparent to viewers and don't control the output in quite the *absolute* way that many photographers like to believe.

Bokeh though is the way a lens renders the OOF. Lenses focus once, They don't continually focus and build a picture. Lenses are corrected more for their point of focus than they are for the OOF. So you get aberrations on the OOF cones, typically because when focussed light of all wavelengths is corrected to bend the same amount, but OOF this is not always true. Lenses can create circles with distinct rings of colour and dependant on the background can produce rings that either stand out or create a more soft and beautiful rendering, they vary in how they render the front OOF to the rear OOF. Consider the two images below. In the first, shot with an MF Nikkor 50/1.4 which is no slouch for bokeh, you can see the aperture shaped highlights in the background as distinct shapes. They are not how you expect backgrounds to look and so can stand out or be *distracting*. Some fast lenses produce distinctive *swirly* bokeh at the edges when used wide open simply because of the "ovaling" of the aperture at the edges of the frame making the image consistent with a kind of progressive swirl. We see and respond to the pattern more than we see the actual background.

In the second image, shot with a Nikkor 105/2.5 into the light with a brighter background, there is a beautiful softening of both the fore and background leaves. There is no super-imposed pattern of aperture but simply the pattern of the leaves softening.

This is bokeh and makes a big difference to how you see and interpret the image, though the actual aperture used on both shots can be varied by quite a bit without changing how your audience interpret the image in both cases.









With a final image again with the Nikkor 105/2.5 but on digital we see the same, a softened background and not the shape of the lens aperture super-imposed on it, again you could vary the actual aperture by quite a bit without changing how your audience sees and interprets the image. It is not the softening of the background that separates but the relative difference in sharpness *between* the fore and background that does, you can vary this and still create the same effect as long as a difference is maintained. The subject is the people and not the background, which most viewers won't really notice and so makes little difference to the image other than relative colour and assumed setting:


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## tirediron

It seems to me that the biggest flaw in his "study" was the fact that he shot his large aperture shots at f1.2.  It doesn't surprise me even a tiny bit that people want the subject to be in focus.  I think if he repeated this, using say, f4 so that the subject was tack-sharp each and every time, the results might be drastically different.


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## dunfly

A prime example of:  if you don't know what you are talking about, you should keep your mouth shut.


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## tirediron

dunfly said:


> A prime example of:  if you don't know what you are talking about, you should keep your mouth shut.


Or....  just keep flapping your gums and people will flock to your YouTube channel!


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## VidThreeNorth

These days, when I watch videos or even read articles, I try to give some "benefit of doubt" to misuse of terms and confused thinking.  Partly I do this because I know that having gotten older, my own writing is getting sloppier and I do tend to get mixed up about what I write.  And I know that people in videos often do much worse simply because they are nervous in front of the camera.  And yes, I was aware that I was giving him a lot of "leeway" when I watched this video for the first time.  I think having read the comments here and thought about it more, I might have give too much "benefit of the doubt" for this video.

The first question is whether he understands bokeh enough to comment on it.  Was he just assuming that it was simply the amount of blurring?  I think here I was wrong to assume that he knew the difference.  Thinking about the video, he never demonstrated that.

That leads to my second error:  Assuming he knew the difference, I allowed that he might have selected lenses for his sample pictures that conformed to his preferences in bokeh.  There is nothing in the video that indicates that he did this.  He probably selected his lenses on more common factors, typical of most photographers, and if he feels that the lens makes his pictures better looking than the same setup using a different lens, he might not know why.

So he did not prove what he thought that he proved, and he did not prove what I thought he was trying to prove (which were already different).

Was there any value in the video?  I think so.  I think that it pointed the way towards a test that _could_ be performed with a bit more effort that might say something of value.

If the test is changed like this:

Select a lens that conforms to ones preferred bokeh characteristics (assuming you can practically do this in some general way -- which is not necessarily the case because photographers who care about bokeh might prefer different bokeh for different pictures).  Then take pictures showing what one feels is the "optimum" degree of background blurring, and then shoot a few more pictures with more or less background blurring.  Then put those pictures through the survey.

What it might show is that regardless of the preferred bokeh style, sometimes the viewing public just likes to see a more detailed background (maybe even more detailed than a photographer might think).  And of course, that will depend on whether the scene has an interesting, or well composed, or "nice" background to begin with.

I can't see it being worth the effort, but if someone else does it, well, yes I'd be interested in seeing it.


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## Designer

The speaker failed to correlate people's degree of "like" with what is ordinary subject separation.  So you get more people liking a photograph in which the subject is clearly separated from the background AND that is in focus.  He did not factor that into his study results.  

He also did not make the point that way too many newbies think shooting at f/1.2 is "cool", because their phone camera doesn't do that.  That's a sure way to impress the Great Unwashed, and become the latest in a flood of one-lens "professionals".  "Everybody on (insert name of social media here) just LOVES my photos, guess I can start making some easy money."

So maybe the photographer just needs to understand his equipment and how to use it to create the photo he wants.


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## Designer

VidThreeNorth said:


> So he did not prove what he thought that he proved, and he did not prove what I thought he was trying to prove (which were already different).
> 
> Was there any value in the video?  I think so.  I think that it pointed the way towards a test that _could_ be performed with a bit more effort that might say something of value.


He did admit that his study was lacking in scientific integrity.

BTW: the various types of blur have already been posted (somewhere).  A search should turn it up.  The problem with that is that the lens data was missing or incomplete. (as I recall)


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## cgw

Then there's this:

Nobody Gives a SH*T About Your Blurry Background


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## Braineack

tirediron said:


> dunfly said:
> 
> 
> 
> A prime example of:  if you don't know what you are talking about, you should keep your mouth shut.
> 
> 
> 
> Or....  just keep flapping your gums and people will flock to your YouTube channel!
Click to expand...

Judging by his comments and praise, this.


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## Derrel

cgw said:


> Then there's this:
> 
> Nobody Gives a SH*T About Your Blurry Background



To skip ahead and hear *the money phrase*, start watching the video at 7:44. Very satisfying!


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## n614cd

Ysarex said:


> Couldn't get through it -- too stupid. Don't think it would help even if he knew what bokeh is.
> 
> Joe



Actually I thought it was interesting to watch. Turn off the sound, because a fair amount seems inaccurate to me. 
But how people voted on which image was better was kinda fascinating. Watching a second time with the sound off, I can really see how @Tim Tucker 2  points apply to the images that received more votes.

Tim


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## VidThreeNorth

Designer said:


> . . .
> BTW: the various types of blur have already been posted (somewhere).  A search should turn it up.  The problem with that is that the lens data was missing or incomplete. (as I recall)



"Olympus Bokeh Research"




Derrel said:


> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> Then there's this:
> 
> Nobody Gives a SH*T About Your Blurry Background
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To skip ahead and hear *the money phrase*, start watching the video at 7:44. Very satisfying!
Click to expand...


Thanks for the shortcut. . . . 



n614cd said:


> Actually I thought it was interesting to watch. Turn off the sound, because a fair amount seems inaccurate to me.
> But how people voted on which image was better was kinda fascinating. Watching a second time with the sound off, I can really see how @Tim Tucker 2  points apply to the images that received more votes.
> Tim



Sometimes turning off the sound is a good solution to many problems, but yes, the pictures did tend to affirm what "Tim Tucker 2" was saying.


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## zombiesniper

Sorry as soon as the video opened and I saw a hipster barista I turned it off.

As for the title.

In short yes. Anything that is not the main subject of an image should not have such a huge following of photozombies.
Is it nice to have an appealing quality to the bokeh, sure. Is an AMAZING part of an image? Only a poorly shot one. 
It's a background element and nothing more.


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## dxqcanada

Back in my days of shooting film, I don't recall ever hearing this word ... sounds like a marketing term to sell more lenses.


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## Derrel

dxqcanada said:


> Back in my days of shooting film, I don't recall ever hearing this word ... sounds like a marketing term to sell more lenses.



The story is that the Japanese word boke was introduced to the English-speaking word in the *May/June 1997 issue of Photo Techniques *magazine, with an h added to the end, to make the word *bokeh*. The editor of the magazine was Mike Johnston, the current editor in chief of The Online Photographer,an excellent blog.

20 Years Ago Next Month: What Is 'Bokeh'?

A short EXCERPT from the original article, from 1997, that brought the concept of *bokeh*,to the western world, in English:

"*What Is 'Bokeh'? By John Kennerdell
Photo Techniques magazine, May/June 1997*

Sooner or later, almost all serious photographers come to grips with the question of image sharpness. They learn to evaluate it, and they explore equipment and techniques to help them achieve it. Surprisingly few of us, however, take a similar interest in the opposite of sharpness: the portions of a photographic image that are not in focus. It's a measure of our lack of concern that we don't even have a standard term in English for the fuzzy parts of a picture.

"Blur" comes closest, but covers too wide a territory (for example, motion blur, which has nothing to do with focus). What we need is a word that specifically refers to the qualities that a lens imparts to objects in front and behind the plane of focus."


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## dxqcanada

Ah, 1997 ... hmm, makes sense now. That's about when I left the photographic industry and got into Information Technology.
Hmm, if that word was out before then I could have sold more lenses ... sounds like a great selling tool.


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## mrca

Would a rose by any other name?  The photographer is responsible for everything within the frame.  That includes subject, foreground and background.  Bokeh as an evaluation on the quality of the oof areas is just that, an evaluation.  Be it cats eye, angular, creamy, harsh, it is not one of those characteristics of the rendering of a lens that is easily reduced to numbers.  However, it has an effect on the image, often subtle, but none the less there.   If you or your clients can't see the difference  or you don't care about the difference, I guess it is immaterial.   But if you are trying to make an image with appropriate oof quality then lens selection is important.   Personally, I like a creamy bokek, especially for soft lit female portraits.  For the same reason, I choose octas for my lighting for the soft round catchlights, not 4 ninety degree hard corners.   But as McNally said, it's like they said in Pirates of the Caribbean,  they aren't rules in photography, more like guidelines.  Oof backgrounds are not a fad, they are a technique to emphasize and isolate the subject or eliminate busy backgrounds.   I can do the same with the bg in focus with high microcontrast lenses yet show the context of the bg.   They make the subject pop from the background yet the background is sharp.   All tools in our tool box to make the image we envision.


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## Christie Photo

dxqcanada said:


> Back in my days of shooting film, I don't recall ever hearing this word ... sounds like a marketing term to sell more lenses.



I think you nailed it.  I include the word with "fast glass," and "prime lens," and other terms that make one feel like an industry insider.  

I don't get anxious when I hear them used.  It just indicates to me what that person is really all about.

-Pete


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## Designer

Derrel said:


> (from the article): "What we need is a word that specifically refers to the qualities that a lens imparts to objects in front and behind the plane of focus."


This is the part that seems to trip people up.  I've seen some absolutely horrible OOF artifacts that would make me want to forever avoid such a lens, and some lenses produce jarring artifacts that have their own "style names", such as; onion, cat's eye, soap bubble, etc. none of which fit the original concept of bokeh which was most often characterized as "dreamy", or undefined.  

I think OOF parts of a photograph have a definite role in artful photography, and can be used to good effect.


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## n614cd

@Derrel 

That article is awesome. It really describes the kinds of bokeh I like and do not like. I never could describe it, I would just say this one works and this one does not! I love TPF!

@mrca 

The third to last sentence, where you discuss mimic the pop effect with a microcontrast lens, you lost me. Can you explain?

Tim


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## n614cd

Christie Photo said:


> I think you nailed it.  I include the word with "fast glass," and "prime lens," and other terms that make one feel like an industry insider.
> 
> I don't get anxious when I hear them used.  It just indicates to me what that person is really all about.
> 
> -Pete



Then what labels would you use to define such concepts?

Tim


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## Derrel

Dave Etchells, the owner of Imaging Resource, admits that his stance on bokeh has changed over the years. As he writes in the comments section of his site's article about Olympus's new f/1.2 lens line here  [ The new bokeh champs? Olympus cracks the code for beautiful bokeh with its F1.2 Pro prime lens series  ]

Dave Etchells Mod  Micah • a year ago
"_It's funny, years ago, here in the US, "bokeh" was mysterious, and people tended to view it as some Japanese fetish that nobody else cared about. I've become increasingly aware of it, ever since shooting a college rugby game my son was in with a Pentax 200mm f/2.8, and noticing all these little "rainbow donuts" in the background, in specular highlights from cars. As you might expect, other background objects were pretty much a mess as well.

Now that I've been schooled a bit more on what to look for, I can't *not* see it any more! :-0_ "


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## dxqcanada

Yup ... now that you all talk about it ... it's now become a visual element ... and it really slapped me in the face when I used my first Mirror lens.


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## Overread

See I see the same thing in different artistic and creative forms. 
Take Warhammer Models (toy soldiers with dice on the tabletop). When I started it was a case of buying models, clipping them off the sprue, glue them together, splash paint on and go! A model could be done in minutes. 

Now it takes me hours because I'm removing mould lines, filling in gaps in the joins, making sure bits line up right, thinning paint, painting in layers, using washes etc... So basically the process became more involved. 


Now there's a few things to realise here:
1) As you learn more and as you expose yourself to more creative works your criteria and standards will change and evolve. You also become more overtly aware of things many people are aware of, but only in the background of their mind. I knew when I started with models that mine were painted way worse than the pro-ones on the box - but I didn't have the skill, language nor understanding to really grasp the difference. I could see it in side by side but didn't know what I was looking at. 

With photography people might well see a more pleasing background and foreground, but might not have the language nor understanding on how to order their thoughts or convey that to someone else.

2) As a result of point 1 your standards might well change over time and they can flip flop around a lot even at the same point in time. A fast snap of your child or dog doing something fun and the busy background is just part of the scene - its a great shot. Others might not think so, but that's them. Meanwhile when you go off to do that portrait session with a friend you are making sure that background is creamy smooth without any major distracting elements. 

3) Gear Lust and Anti-Gear Lust. A pattern I notice is that the internet has loads of gear chat and very few artistic chats. Others have spotted this too and there's almost a sort of blog-war between the two. The "arty" blogs will push for cheaper gear and empowering people to appreciate their photography without "oh all that fussy gear porn and that fast glass you don't need"; whilst the other side will talk about how great their gear is and what they can achieve with it that you can't with lesser or other gear etc...
Basically I view it as a huge amount of click-baiting titles on both sides of the coin that ultimately boils down to the fact that a "photographer" can be any one of a vast number of people and that individuality is a key element. Some want a light kit; some don't mind a heavy kit; some want a technically capable kit; some just want snaps; some want to be stealthy; some want weather sealing; some want etc........ It's not that any one blogger is right, its that they are all right for a given person and background and situation (save for those who are more open with their viewpoints). 

4) I personally think anyone who takes the hobby "seriously" and is enthusiastic should aim to learn more than they need and then make the choice of what they like to produce from a position of empowerment. Granted this can be difficult for some who simply cannot afford some specific gear; but I think the point in general still stands. Once you can do more you can choose what standard you want freely; meanwhile if you only learn what you need (and worse let people talk you out of learning more) then you are fixed at a limit that is not your full potential through your own lack of understanding. You can't make a free choice on how or what to use.




Anyway Bokeh is both over and under rated depending on who you talk to and at what stage in their photography they are at. For some its the holy grail for others its just a feature and for some they just don't care. You'll never have an answer that fits all save for the answer to try all and find out what works for you.


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## Derrel

If anybody wants some _good_ articles about bokeh, from people who actually KNOW what the heck it is....there is plenty of it in this list of on-line articles.The Online Photographer + Bokeh - Google Search

This 2009 post might be one of my favorites from the above list:What Is Bokeh?


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## VidThreeNorth

There are a couple of things that have been on my mind about this since the beginning:

First, the quality of the out of focus is not a new issue in the west.  _Some_ photographers and lens designers have known about it long before 1997.  I know this because I remember a German fellow ("Dieter") who basically described it to me long before that.  He was describing why "perfect" lenses were not necessarily the best, and I remember him describing that if it was good behind the focus plane that it would be bad in front of the focus plane.  Back then, I didn't understand what he was telling me, but when I read the Olympus article, I realized what he had described.  But it shows that there were people, probably going back pretty far who knew about it.  Also, it shows that not having a special term for it didn't mean it was not understood.  It is convenient to have the term, and I think we benefit from having the term both because it makes discussion easier, and also the fact that there is a special term for it now brings it to the attention of more photographers.

Second, the reason why it has not become an issue more generally in the past is that for the whole industry, since around 1970's (and maybe earlier) has striven for "best general optical performance".  Included in that is the attempt to eliminate spherical aberration.  If you get rid of spherical aberration, then that leaves you with "solid" bokeh.  And generally, "solid" bokeh is "ok" for most photography.  It might not be literally the best for a given picture, but you have to be very fussy (and very knowledgeable) to see the result and feel badly about it.

Third, I remember back in SLR days that some lenses were known to not having circular apertures.  I don't know whether it was true or not, but one fellow said that it was deliberate because it was felt that circular apertures tended to make pictures look unnatural.  Actually, I really would like to find of that was true.  I think some of the Canon lenses were like that weren't they?


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## Designer

VidThreeNorth said:


> Second, the reason why it has not become an issue more generally in the past is that for the whole industry, since around 1970's (and maybe earlier) has striven for "best general optical performance".


One of the unfortunate (?) side effects of this ongoing lens refinement is the loss of depth rendering.  When photographers complained about color aberration (fringing), lens makers dutifully made corrections to try to eliminate color fringing, only to have inadvertently (?) reduced the lens's ability to dynamically portray depth.  That is why many of the latest lenses produce flat images.  Sharp, and no CA, but flat.  Oh, well.


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## n614cd

Designer said:


> VidThreeNorth said:
> 
> 
> 
> Second, the reason why it has not become an issue more generally in the past is that for the whole industry, since around 1970's (and maybe earlier) has striven for "best general optical performance".
> 
> 
> 
> One of the unfortunate (?) side effects of this ongoing lens refinement is the loss of depth rendering.  When photographers complained about color aberration (fringing), lens makers dutifully made corrections to try to eliminate color fringing, only to have inadvertently (?) reduced the lens's ability to dynamically portray depth.  That is why many of the latest lenses produce flat images.  Sharp, and no CA, but flat.  Oh, well.
Click to expand...

Can you give an example? I am not following.

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk


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## Tim Tucker 2

VidThreeNorth said:


> First, the quality of the out of focus is not a new issue in the west. _Some_ photographers and lens designers have known about it long before 1997.



Absolutely.  See Nikon's 1001 nights regarding the 105/2.5 original rangefinder design from the late '40's:

Nikon | Imaging Products | NIKKOR - The Thousand and One Nights No.45



Designer said:


> One of the unfortunate (?) side effects of this ongoing lens refinement is the loss of depth rendering.



A lens's purpose is to render an image on a 2D surface for reproduction as a 2D image so I'm at loss as to how you think the *3D rendering* qualities of lenses are diminished. If you mean the natural inclination of humans to interpret 2D images as 3D spaces and therefore interpret a 3rd dimension because we try to understand 2D representations as 3D space then I think you are talking about *illusion*. Illusion is about us, as humans, seeing something that's not there because we neither look nor interpret what we see correctly. It is then quite simple to understand that the *apparent 3D POP* of older designs is simply due to the fact that they did not render correctly, that they had flaws. Most notably distinct barrel distortion and a tendency to produce softer and therefore lower contrast at the edges.

If you do a quick study of Leonardo Da Vinci then you'd find that the basic principles for creating this illusion, (of 3D on a 2D surface), were well understood in the 16th century. They can be created with far greater effectiveness and consistency with more modern lenses if you know what you're doing.

Images are flat 2D surfaces, any impression of a third dimension is therefore pure illusion, (because if we see something that's not in a 2D image...) . We need to understand this rather than invent some voodoo and attribute it to one's *refinement and taste* in which lenses we buy. It's rubbish, complete and utter.

I feel a little disturbed that it's beginning to creep into this well balanced and informed forum. Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with all this rubbish about *3D POP* in older lenses and how it's being designed out of modern ones...


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## Designer

Tim Tucker 2 said:


> Images are flat 2D surfaces, any impression of a third dimension is therefore pure illusion, (because if we see something that's not in a 2D image...) . We need to understand this rather than invent some voodoo and attribute it to one's *refinement and taste* in which lenses we buy. It's rubbish, complete and utter.
> 
> I feel a little disturbed that it's beginning to creep into this well balanced and informed forum. Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with all this rubbish about *3D POP* in older lenses and how it's being designed out of modern ones...


Call it what you like. Read or don't read. Why would it matter to me?  It doesn't.

What is exactly the '3D pop' in photography?

The Death of Beautiful Rendition and 3D Pop on Modern Lenses - Photography Life

https://petapixel.com/2016/03/14/problem-modern-lenses/

The flattening of modern lenses or the death of 3d pop

lens rendering - Google Search

Do low element lenses have more "depth" than high element lenses?

Lenspire

Micro contrast and why it is important - MartijnKort-Photography


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## Tim Tucker 2

Designer said:


> Tim Tucker 2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Images are flat 2D surfaces, any impression of a third dimension is therefore pure illusion, (because if we see something that's not in a 2D image...) . We need to understand this rather than invent some voodoo and attribute it to one's *refinement and taste* in which lenses we buy. It's rubbish, complete and utter.
> 
> I feel a little disturbed that it's beginning to creep into this well balanced and informed forum. Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with all this rubbish about *3D POP* in older lenses and how it's being designed out of modern ones...
> 
> 
> 
> Call it what you like. Read or don't read. Why would it matter to me?  It doesn't.
> 
> What is exactly the '3D pop' in photography?
> 
> The Death of Beautiful Rendition and 3D Pop on Modern Lenses - Photography Life
> 
> https://petapixel.com/2016/03/14/problem-modern-lenses/
> 
> The flattening of modern lenses or the death of 3d pop
> 
> lens rendering - Google Search
> 
> Do low element lenses have more "depth" than high element lenses?
> 
> Lenspire
> 
> Micro contrast and why it is important - MartijnKort-Photography
Click to expand...


Well, if I trawled the internet I could find dozens of articles that would support anything that I choose to believe. I looked briefly at one of the links you posted and got the the part where it declared that lens manufacturers were, "lying to us," and that it was all a conspiracy...

But it's difficult to believe.

You see photographic art is rooted in observation so the claim that we are deceived by the words of manufacturers rather than actual observation of real results is a little far fetched to those of use who look rather than read... 

If you wish to believe that a lens can capture this depth information from reflected light and then display this on a 2D computer screen so you can see 3D, or that one coloured dot is further away than another on your screen then you may continue in you delusion and your belief that your photography jumps of the page because of the lenses you bought. (_Though I also find it a little of a dichotomy that on photo forums we spend so much time declaring that it's the photographer rather than the equipment then only to argue that it's the equipment.._. ).

One more link to add, from this site:

Careful observation and it's role in developing the eye

Perhaps you'll read it and see for yourself, remember the principles involved were among those used by Leondardo Da Vinci.

P.S. The whole 3D POP argument falls apart on one major contradiction. It involves the belief that somehow the older lenses capture less *corrupted* information. The exact explanation is unimportant but consider this; it hinges on the belief that an older lens somehow captures these depth cues more accurately and that we see them more correctly and therefore *see* greater depth in a 2D image. But it relies on the assumption that what you see is absolute and correct, that you see the depth cues in a more absolute manner. But surely if your vision was absolute and what you saw was correct you would not fail to see a 2D image as what it is, a 2D image. Whereas common thought runs along the lines of; if you see a third dimension in an image where no depth exists then you see something that's not there. Which is explained by the nature of illusion, not lens design.


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## n614cd

Designer said:


> Tim Tucker 2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Images are flat 2D surfaces, any impression of a third dimension is therefore pure illusion, (because if we see something that's not in a 2D image...) . We need to understand this rather than invent some voodoo and attribute it to one's *refinement and taste* in which lenses we buy. It's rubbish, complete and utter.
> 
> I feel a little disturbed that it's beginning to creep into this well balanced and informed forum. Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with all this rubbish about *3D POP* in older lenses and how it's being designed out of modern ones...
> 
> 
> 
> Call it what you like. Read or don't read. Why would it matter to me?  It doesn't.
> 
> What is exactly the '3D pop' in photography?
> 
> The Death of Beautiful Rendition and 3D Pop on Modern Lenses - Photography Life
> 
> https://petapixel.com/2016/03/14/problem-modern-lenses/
> 
> The flattening of modern lenses or the death of 3d pop
> 
> lens rendering - Google Search
> 
> Do low element lenses have more "depth" than high element lenses?
> 
> Lenspire
> 
> Micro contrast and why it is important - MartijnKort-Photography
Click to expand...

Did you read the photography life article? 
It was really good. And the last paragraph says it best.
This was satire and full of it. I love the statement that those who believe modern lenses are better believe the earth is round. Basically they implied people who advocate old lenses belong to the flat earth society.

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk


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## Designer

The author did a good job of explaining the terminology and the "controversy".  He was correct until he confounded his article and research with "the theory of everything".  That's when he threw out the baby along with the bath water.

He has apparently misunderstood the nature of light, so obviously his conclusions would necessarily be wrong.  

By implying that light is an "object", and that it "moves", he cannot possibly understand glass and lens design.

*Nasim Mansurov*
Nasim Mansurov is the author and founder of Photography Life, based out of Denver, Colorado. He is recognized as one of the leading educators in the photography industry.."

This is how it is possible for some people to obtain a college degree, (having been taught by "leading educators") yet upon graduating know nothing of substance. 

My lesson in this is to be wary of "educators" who don't know what they're talking about, and gather my knowledge from sources that stand the test of logic.

You can choose to ignore the body of the article and the images, but then that leaves you with no argument, therefore you must resort to personal invective.


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## Tim Tucker 2

Designer said:


> You can choose to ignore the body of the article and the images, but then that leaves you with no argument, therefore you must resort to personal invective.



That I choose to ignore a body of rubbish does not mean I do not and have not read extensively on the subject of how to create a sense of depth or even the illusion of 3D in 2D images. I didn't come to dismiss so much out of whim but out of understanding. But I'm still unsure of what you're trying to say as you're not really saying anything past your first post... 

Doesn't it strike anybody as odd that we can assess these differences in lens design by viewing compressed and resized jpgs on computer screens, then attribute the 3D POP to the subtleties of design in lenses? It's not struck you that the way a sensor records, a computer processes and a screen displays corrupts far more than a lens ever did, to the point that the light shining out of your computer screen has no relationship at all to the way light passed through the lens? The full spectrum goes into a lens where the sensor records this extra information but only narrow bands of red, green and blue come out of the screen. So how is this *uncorrupted* information displayed, how do you see it and interpret the extra depth cues it provides? It's doesn't take a college degree to realise the absurdity of this idea. 

What is also conveniently forgotten in our quest to find the absolute answer within the camera is that we view the real world through lenses projecting an image on a 2D surface. So why do we see and understand the world in 3D, is it the lens element count of our eyes or maybe there's a little processing going on in our brains? Perhaps there's some of this processing going on when we view photographs, it's where I'd look to find the answer. It's where a lot of people with doctorates have looked and found the answer...  

We see what we wish to see, and herein lies the answer. Some older lenses produce a more distorted view of the world that doesn't quite match our experience and expectation of what we expect thing to look like, and it's in the way our brains process and modify this information so it is consistent with our memory and experience that the illusion of extra depth where none exists is created. It is the nature of illusion that we don't see it correctly, just as you're not seeing a flat 2D image correctly (_if you were seeing a flat 2D image correctly it would have no 3D POP_) and so once again we come up against the same contradiction: If 3D POP is about how a lens captures information then it also relies on us seeing it correctly, and if we see things correctly and in absolute terms we MUST then see a 2D image for what it is. Precisely the opposite of the answer many are trying to prove, that it's inherent in the physics of light and therefore in the absolute design of lenses.

Anyway we've strayed about as far off topic as is possible, about as unrelated as the light emanating from you computer screen is from the light that passes through a lens.


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## Grandpa Ron

Much to do about nothing. If you like your photo backgrounds blurred you will make then blurred. If you like your photos less blurred you will make them less blurred. If you know the likes and dislikes of  the contest judge you might post process accordingly. Most just make the print that looks best to them.


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## Luke_Learniffy

I thought this video was really interesting, I liked his point about shooting in a shallow depth of field has a pleasing effect on images but not to ignore the key composition techniques to creating an amazing image.


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## D7K

It's all art, yes there is a science to it, but the more we introduce science the more we stifle art... who declared "Bokeh" to be pleasing or good or not, Yes, there are examples of terrible rendering and terrible shooting, but this doesn't seem like a thread for learning.  Some lenses will give a more pleasing bokeh to the eye of most thank others, should you go and pay $3000 dollars to get that, that's your call...
This is a tired conversation, I stood in front of "Sunflowers" and saw nothing but an a4 painting of some flowers that could have been done by anybody, I've seen fresco's from the 11th century that were so basic, yet complex and left me stunned... I've visited caves that have guano paintings from 4BC that were impressive.. Art is art to the artist. "Bokeh" is not overrated, but to understand what it is, and how and when to use it, is more important, But what the hell do I know, I usually shoot landscapes!


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