Can an entirely out-of-focus photo still be described as having bokeh?

Asked 3/20/2012

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I accidentally took a photo where nothing in the frame appears sharp. Does that still count as bokeh, or is bokeh only used when part of the image is in focus and the background or foreground is blurred?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

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The Japanese word Boke (ボケ) or the American spelling Bokeh, refers to the out of focus areas of a photograph. It does not necessarily mean only the background blur, it refers to foreground blur as well. Bokeh is often used to refer to the quality of out of focus blur more so than its presence. In Japanese, Boke Aji (ボケ味) is used to specifically refer to the quality of bokeh. Aji literally means "flavor", so it would be referring to the kind of bokeh...good or bad, clean or dirty, etc.

Bokeh ranges in quality from poor, where blur circles are rough and polygonal with poor uniformity to very high, where blur circles are smooth and perfectly round, with clean uniformity or a slight spheric grade from center to edge. Circular apertures with rounded diaphragm blades generally create more pleasing bokeh, and a slight amount of spherical aberration in a lens tends to create the most pleasing bokeh.

In your specific shot, you do indeed have bokeh. The quality of your bokeh appears to be lower than one would really look for in a photograph. Its a bit rough and the blur circles are not entirely uniform. Your shot is also only slightly out of focus...you might notice better results if you put it out of focus even more, however without a useful foreground subject...bokeh is largely useless.

Originally by user124. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user124

14y ago

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Yes. Bokeh refers to the out-of-focus areas of an image, not only the background, and not only when another part of the photo is sharp. It can include both background and foreground blur.

More precisely, photographers often use “bokeh” to mean the character or quality of that blur—whether it looks smooth, harsh, round, busy, etc.—rather than simply the fact that blur exists.

So an image where nothing is in focus can still contain bokeh. In your example, it would be fair to say the photo is entirely out of focus, and therefore essentially “all bokeh.”

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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