Question

Taking Wikipedia as any sort of gospel seems dangerous to me. I'm pretty sure I'd trust John over Wiki on this as I know he has a wealth of experience and knowledge while I know nothing whatsoever about the Wiki contributors.

But that is a personal value judgement.

At this point can I just say I don't give a s**t what the definition is technically or in a dictionary sense - some lenses at some apertures in some circumstances deliver a really nice OOF background. Others don't.

So why don't we just take some photos?

Mike

Clearly fuzzy logic.

Me too but wiki worded it so nicely and not only wiki went against John thoughts.

Non of the technical term are important while taking a photo but it is important when discussing them
So better get everyone on one line what something means then have two definitions for a word.

Agreed with most and recently is more then 10 years ago
Still the true meaning of the words can be interrupted differently by many, but that doesn't make it right to use it wrongly.

The dictionary says clearly something different like all the other dictonaries btw, they are right but not fully.

Read this, this a simple read so don't worry
http://toothwalker.org/optics/bokeh.html
He explains what I mean, by focusing and analyzing a single point of light you can see how it renders the out of focus blur.
So is that site (toothwalker) with agreement to everyone?

Pfffffff, and you..... my Dutch Compadre, accuse me from this?
I wonder where the OP went. Probably running home to mama

Martin.

Stefan, you can't say what's right and wrong when it comes to the definition of words. There is no true meaning of any word. A word means whatever the author (any author) wants it to mean.

If the reader doesn't understand what was meant then the author has to use different or more words. This will need to be the case with "bokeh" until everyone uses it to mean the same thing, if that ever happens.

Yes sorry Martin had a rough day yesterday

Pete that's true what you mean but really read the last link I posted, this link and then you can see where all the confusing comes from.
The bokeh is surely out of focus blur but only a part of it and the word is here since 1992 but only recently when it is used a lot without the proper meaning of the words the original (true) meaning shifted, were Bokeh is used to define the whole blurred background instead of a part of it.

A word means whatever the author (any author) wants it to mean.
So if I use the word "car" and I mean ball then that is right?
... I wonder why I need to learn a language at all
... or do you mean something else with the words in the sentence:
No harm intended Pete, I got your point

I think it's becoming clearer that the term in common usage is being used to describe "the aesthetic qualities" of the out of focus areas in an image.

It's a relatively new term and any clarification, which we are working our way through in this thread, must be a good thing.

It's no use clinging to the original technical description, if indeed there is one, if most people are talking about something different.

Some of these web sources are not particularly reliable unfortunately. Lots of information out there, much of it not very accurate. We seem to have a Hitch Hiker's Guide To The galaxy evolving.

Too right!!

I have unleashed a MONSTER.

Rest assure, it doesn't happen to often Right....everybody???

Martin.

This thread opened a real can of worms!

I've always taken it to mean the 'out-of-focus-bits', so you can have good or bad bokeh, depending on whether it's aesthetically pleasing or not.

It'll be interesting to see how the word evolves.

a couple of links;

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bokeh_/discuss/72157604538847578/

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/40247-spherical-ab...

(Mods, let me know if you don't want me to link to other forums).

try a search on "swirly bokeh"

must try my Helios-44 lens....

Yes. Your meaning of "car" would be right to you and to everyone who understood what you meant. "Car" would come to mean ball for the majority of people if and when the majority used it and understood it that way. That is how the English language works.

Dictionaries only reflect the way language is used. They don't set it. Writers and speakers do, and "writers" includes anyone posting to this forum!

Believing that a certain definition of a word is correct because writers you respect use it will mean that you won't necessarily understand what ordinary people mean when they use the word.

We have to go by the majority. I'm not sure there is a clear majority definition for "bokeh" yet, and I have indeed often got the impression of misunderstanding and confusion (and frankly often a whiff of bullshit) when the subject is raised on forums.

That's from Alice in Wonderland, and was meant to point up a very real problem - which is that clever people subvert the meanings of words for their own ends, and ignorant people misuse words because they don't understand them, or more commonly, can't think of the right one.

I'm with Stefan on this, up to a point; Bokeh has always referred to the manner in which a lens treats out-of-focus highlights. However, I think this is only one aspect of the whole subject of how lenses render backgrounds, and, lacking a suitable word that covers the subject, people have been stretching the meaning of bokeh to embrace more than the O-O-F aspect.

Thus is the language debased - made fuzzy. We really need a new word for the whole OOFB subject, so I humbly submit for your consideration the term Boof; as in: "this lens has great Boof - the background is really creamy".

G

It doesn't matter whether definitions of words change through subversion or ignorance as long as you are in touch with current usage.

Boof? Truly wonderful!

Woohoo thank you George, I almost don't dare to say it but I love you
This forum becomes scarier by the minute

To contribute to what George said, read this part from my toothwalker site.
Since any image is represented by a large number of images of points, we may attempt to understand the whole by considering the blurring of a single point. An unsharply imaged point is associated with a circle of confusion, or a blur disk. This blur disk is characterized by
1) A size.
2) A shape.
3) The light distribution across the disk.

The size of the disk determines the "amount of blur". The shape of the blur patch does not need to be circular, in which case the designations "circle of confusion" or "blur disk" are misnomers. Nonetheless, for convenience the word disk will be freely used to mean a patch of arbitrary shape. Although the size and the shape of the disk are unmistakable blur characteristics, they do not touch the essence of bokeh as the Japanese intended the word. The distribution of light across the disk does.

Please can we all agree on this and move on

And no new words, you see how confusing Bokeh is and that's already 17 years here.