Bokeh and Portraits: Why I Just Don't Care

I think it was Freeman Patterson who said there were no bad lenses, just poor use of a lens...
In other words, use what you have in a way that "works"

Hans, try this with bokeh lights and you'll see MUCH more difference, especially with creamy lens like the Nikkor 58/1.4G and 135/2 DC. I shoot a lot of backlit outdoor portraits, and I can tell you I'm happy I've parted with the 50/1.4. When the sun as a backlight is filtered through trees, it creates a lot of high-contrast bokeh lights, and the way they render is quite important to the overall aesthetic of an image. Your examples use a mellow, low-contrast background, so the difference is subtle.

lol you sound a bit bokeh-angry :) Nice post Hans :::)))

I think more than anything it is a subconscious impact. The viewer isn't necessarily aware of the smoother bokeh but when looking at the nicer bokeh the image is subtly more pleasing to view.

Also I haven't really heard too many people raving about the Sigma having great Bokeh? Most reviews I've read complain about Bokeh as being mediocre at best. I'd guess if you added Nikon 58mm F1.4 into this comparison as a third player that you would start to see more of difference. My main complaint about the Nikon 50mm has always been terrible flare control and brutal CA, its Bokeh is really not that bad.

Also one other thing that I think is often forgotten is that Bokeh quality isn't just about the smoothness of spherical aberration deep in the out of focus area. For me, one of the more important aspects is how smoothly the image transitions from in focus to out of focus detail giving the image a sense of dimension. There are a few lenses out there that do it so well such as the aforementioned Nikon 58mm or Canon's glorious 135mm F2. I can't believe how many times I've been browsing 500px and been like: "Man that photo seems to have beautiful dimension to it" and I scroll down to the specs and it was shot with one of those 2 lenses. (or a Zeiss)

I disagree. Bokeh is one of my primary concerns when choosing a lens for portraiture. There ARE different types of bokeh and knowing which to use is as important as knowing what kind of DOF to use. Of course there are times where bokeh is insignificant, but when I think of portraiture, I think of shallow DOF. Usually backgrounds play a strong role in framing and setting the mood for the subject, and bokeh is a primary factor in creating the feeling. While none of us have an infinite lens arsenal to choose from, knowing what bokeh you achieve with each glass you own is important. I think most of us prefer the "creamy" bokeh for portraiture, which is more accurately described as a Gaussian distributed bokeh. I've noticed more of the modern, mid-level lenses achieve an evenly distributed bokeh which can create more harsh edges in the background out-of-focus areas, but is universally accepted for the most part. Some of the cheaper consumer level lenses, and a large majority of zoom lenses under 50mm create the reverse of Gaussian distributed bokeh, in which everything looks like doughnuts. Personally, I find this highly distracting and I avoid this kind of bokeh. I find a large majority of lenses that are sharp and have low spherical aberration tend to produce evenly distributed bokeh. There are exceptions, and the one I tend to use the most frequently is the Canon 85mm 1.2. Its bokeh is about halfway between even-distribution and true-Gaussian while remaining sharp and delivering mild SA wide open. The two lenses above are obviously different in design, but have similar bokeh performance (the Sigma being slightly more Gaussian). I'm sure the bokeh of the trusty 50mm was a design goal for Sigma when creating their lens (it looks like they achieved this and then some, but sacrificed in the size department). Either way, the side by side comparison of these two lenses looks about the same, but my point is there are some that would not look the same.

Great post! Nice to see a real world comparison of these two lenses in particular. I have the Nikkor and was thinking about the Sigma Art. I am now happy with mine. The real unanswered question is... Where did you get that awesome SW shirt? :)

I am really glad someone said that here.
Thank you.

Bokeh is something only photographers blow loads over. Put both those photos side by side and ask your average person (or client) to spot the differences and they won't. I also never shoot below f4 for commercial work anyway. I rarely get below 2.8 unless I am walking around shooting snapshots...

Great article. In my opinion, great photos have little to do with bokeh or any other technicalish pixel peeper sharpness ooooh lets zoom into 100% foolishness. Its all about light on a good subject that captures a moment with a creative vision. It starts and ends with that, period. Once you have that recipe for a great photo, the other technical fru fru may be added for a bit of magic.

You guys are defining bokeh as the blur of an out of focus area in an image. I've been taught that bokeh was the transition between the in and the out of focus area of an image, not the blur of the background. So i searched the web for answers and i find this article (http://users.rider.edu/~suler/photopsy/bokeh.htm) which makes the distinction between several types of bokeh: the transition bokeh, the background / foreground bokeh and the glint bokeh. To me the most important ones are the transition and the glint ones, but in the end, like Hans, i do not think a non photographer would make any difference with types of bokeh between a fast and a cheap lense...

Hans, thanks for the article, I think the success of any article is whether it makes people think and question their approaches, beliefs etc. It seems this one has.

Having read the comments and thought much about this in the past I would like to offer a few comments on my take, and I apologise ahead of time if I cause any offence to any other posters.

First I think much of the hype regarding Bokeh is rooted in a modern and generally lazy approach to photographic composition, and before you all start shouting please hear me out.

Over the years fashions in image creation come and go, for a good part of photographic history Bokeh was a none issue, photographers more often sought to render most of the image sharp, and in fact it was often a battle to do so but the trend over the past few years has been to more shallow DOF. Portraits (of course) product shots, landscapes, abstracts....nothing seems to escape with shallow DOF pursuit.

Now much of this I feel is driven by the fact that many images, indeed the great majority are not printed and certainly not printed to wall display size but rather are displayed on the Web at something like 1200 by 800 pixels or less. In such a format, shallow DOF does provide a greater degree of apparent separation (as does simple pared down compositional structure) so the deficits of shallow DOF are never seen as much of an issue. We all know the problems though, lack of critical focus, insufficient detail where it should be, optical aberrations etc.

But here is the thing, at 1200 by 800 pixels the differences in Bokeh rendition are going to be so slight (unless the image is radically cropped) as to all but irrelevant, except perhaps for the most extreme pixel peeper.

Prints are different, especially those of wall size, we might see the bokeh differences, but honestly the differences in Bokeh are pretty slight compared to say the differences in the way the OOF areas render if you actually went to a much larger format, say 4 by 5 film. I am not saying they are not important to some photographers, clearly they are, even occasionally to myself, but it is rarely a deal breaker.

Often this Bokeh thing and shallow DOF preoccupation is used to cover up the fact that the photographer has compositional difficulty in dealing with backgrounds and other non subject elements so the expedient of killing the background via a bokeh fest is appealing. Only problem folks is almost everyone does it, all you need is a fast lens and wide aperture.

But there is a trade off, a great majority of those shallow DOF bokeh fest images simply don't stand up when enlarged to wall print size, they lack adequate clarity where it is really needed, hence the idea of shooting wide open (where bokeh differences show most) is for most commercial purposes counter productive. Clearly this is why a great many long time shooters stick to reliable apertures, like f4.

Images look 3D in print (at least to my eyes) when they have careful composition that uses lines, perspective, suitable lighting and importantly high micro contrast where it is meant to be. Bokeh I feel has very little to do with getting a 3D look, shallow DOF and Bokeh effects are a fudge to get some impact when there is a deficit of all the other factors in play.

Ultimately I have settled on the approach, shoot for detail where you need it and use an aperture wide enough to give some reasonable separation, then use the myriad of tools in photoshop to adjust the look of he OOF areas to taste and artistic intent. Fact is you can take sharpness and detail away but you can't add it if its not there to start with.

None of this is of course what Nikon, Canon, Sony, Zeiss want you to hear, there is big profit and bragging rights in them there speedy optics. I just think perhaps many photographers should spend a little more time thinking about their composition and editing skills and less time worried about lens Bokeh.

Of course as always I could be totally wrong and I am not dissing those who find Bokeh a big issue for their particular style of work....to each his own.

Shoot at 22, blur in post. OMG. Great article.

What's funny is that I find so many more posts/articles about how bokeh is overrated as compared to posts about how critical bokeh is. In any case, this article while a decent read, doesn't really address bokeh all that well. What we can see from the sample pictures is that the Nikon 50 1.4D has a more distracting background blur as compared to the Sigma 50 1.4 Art despite being a sharper lens. So unless you are after distracting looking background blur, the Sigma 50 1.4 Art is a technically better lens if your budget allows and if the weight and size are not a problem. You might want to test the foreground blur in a similar way and there is a very real possibility that the foreground blur on the Nikon may be smoother and less distracting than that of the Sigma 50 1.4 Art.