Bokeh?

[Joshb321]

I'm relatively new here and love this forum. I love Canon and am trying to sell my car very badly to get my 20D.

But what is BOKEH? I see it in alot of the posts and I can't find anywhere that says what it is. DOF I think is depth of focus and I got some others, but could there be a sticky about all the darn acronyms!

Just wondering. Again, this is an amazing forum. Thanks for all the info to everyone on it!

[liza]

To put it simply, bokeh = background blur.

[tim]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bokeh

[SolPics]

It's generally shooting at an open aperature to reduce the DOF, so the subject is in sharp focus, and the background has an aesthetic blur. It makes the subject stand out and gives a soothing feeling to the background.

[syburn]

To me Bokeh is a Malaysian or Singapore word. If there are any people on this forum that speak Malay they might be able to tell us (well not realy help but as the word does look foreign it would be fun to know if it means something). Or maybe Tangalog language from the Phillipines.

Yours unhelpfuly - Simon

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

Bokeh is the background blur caused by the shallowness of your DOF (which by the way stands for Depth Of Field and is controlled by apeture (f/ stop numbers) ) A great lens will be able to blur the back ground smoothly while keeping the subject sharp.

[Jon, The Elder]

It is a Japanese word to describe the particular degree of softness in the area behind the DOF. Rob Gailbraith.com and the chap at luminous-landscape.com have written extensively about Bokeh (Bo-kah) including a list of lenses that are rated as to degree of Bokeh.