Welcome to the first in a series of Tech2 Tips blog posts in which our principal creative, Dave, takes you behind the scenes to give you an insight into some of the techniques we employ and look at the technical gear we use to capture our timeless imagery. First up we’re going to delve into the mystical world of bokeh.
Usually, in professional photography, we do all we can to avoid blur. Blur can come from a number of sources such as unintentional camera movement or incorrect focussing, but modern equipment is incredibly good at reducing the chances of blurry images with highly accurate, multi-point autofocus, high-iso sensors and electronic image stabilisation all working to ensure the images we capture are crisp and sharp. And that’s great because our customers generally don’t want soft, blurry imagery - they’re looking for pin-sharp, in-focus shots that make themselves, their product or their brand look its absolute best.
But there are times when some forms of blur, those carefully curated and captured by the photographer, can be a very pleasing artistic element of an image, helping to bring attention to the subject and helping it to stand out from the background. This is what we know in the trade as Bokeh (or boke, to give it its slightly more correct Japanese translation). The gospel according to Wikipedia describes Bokeh as “the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens” and goes on to share a definition that describes it as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".
Although the notion of Bokeh has been around since the early days of photography, it has come to popular prominence in recent years thanks to Instagram, where a search for #bokeh generates in excess of 6 million hits. Smartphone developers have attempted to capitalise on this popularity by creating cameras and apps that simulate the bokeh effect (you’ll understand why I say simulate shortly).
Creating “good” bokeh requires the use of very fast lenses (an absolute minimum of f2.8, but preferably f1.8 or faster) being shot wide-open and with a separation between the subject and the out-of-focus areas (this can be helped by use of a telephoto lens with a focal length of 85mm or longer). As you can imagine, most smartphones would have difficulty in achieving all of these conditions, however, newer models with multiple cameras capturing different focal lengths are able to achieve a marginally acceptable bokeh background effect.
Although most people think of bokeh as the near circular “blooms” of light in the background of a portrait - the blooms are actually the shape of the diaphragm of the lens, so vary according to the number of blades - it is actually more sophisticated than that and can appear in any part of the image that is not the subject, or indeed across the entire image to create an artistic effect.
Bokeh from city lights in the background of an image.
Bokeh in the foreground of an image.
Subtle bokeh in the foreground and more traditional bokeh in the background of an image.
Bokeh works well in monochrome too.
Bokeh as the subject of an image.
Personally, bokeh is one of my favourite techniques and you will find me using it in a variety of photographic scenarios and in video too. I am particularly fond of the results from my incredibly fast 35mm f1.2 SLR Magic lens on my Sony A7Sii body which together create some wonderfully cinematic footage. Of course, bokeh is just one technique where we use blur to enhance the artistic appeal of an image. Panning with moving subjects can create a sense of fast motion, whilst differential focus can create a connection between two subjects, but we will look at those in further episodes of Tech2Tips.
Here are my Top 3 tips for great bokeh:
1. Use a “fast” lens and shoot at the widest possible aperture.
2. Make sure there is a good separation between the subject and the background
3. Look for backlighting conditions that can create light “blooms” – things like dappled sunlight on leaves in daylight or fairy lights at night can create excellent bokeh.
Next time though, we’ll take a look at a piece of kit that is always in my bag and which I use in a wide variety of shooting scenarios – my MIOPs Smart Remote Trigger.