All About the Bokeh

Holiday Lights; 750mm, 1/15 s -1, f/8.0, ISO 800

A few test shots with the Kenko Teleplus MC7 and the Samyang/Phoenix 500mm reflex lens have inspired me to write a tutorial about “The Bokeh”. And this gets me to thinking…

If the agitated, donut-shaped bokeh of catadioptric lenses is considered to be a distracting element, what happens when it becomes the only element?

I snapped this in a series of exposures, and showed it completely out of context to my partner. Her reaction was, “Oh Cool!” Precisely what I had hoped for. This spoke volumes, since she’s not easily impressed.

This is just one of the many ways the catadioptric lens can be used in creative ways. There are those times when its unique bokeh can work to your advantage by creating interesting shapes.

Pinpoints of light may appear as rings, but all sorts of crazy things happen to other out-of-focus elements.   Here, tree branches have been purposely de-focused to generate texture.

In many cases, the bokeh manifests itself as a double-exposure. Here, the branches in the background of a normal exposure appear to have been double-exposed even though the subject focus is sharp.

Probably one of the least desirable aspects of catadioptric lenses; an agitated bokeh.

If this is considered distracting, it can easily be corrected with Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter…

The subject is masked out, and the Lens Blur filter applied to soften the bokeh.