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“Bokeh” is a term that originates from the Japanese word “boke” (blur/haze), but really pertains to the actual quality of the out-of-focus area of a photograph. If you look at the following image you’ll notice that the angel decoration is in focus, and the busy background of the room and portions of the tree have turned to a smooth, silky blur – that quality blur is what we call “bokeh”.

This sort of image relies on a fairly shallow depth of field. Depth of field (DOF) is the closest and furthest points in the image at which focus is kept, the areas outside of the depth of field gradually become less sharp until they become a blur… the point where you find bokeh.

What you will need

Bokeh is pretty much lens-dependent. You will need a fairly fast lens, AKA: a lens with a wide aperture. f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8 and even f/4 lenses all do the trick. Zoom lenses with wide apertures exaggerate bokeh to the point where it looks quite amazing.

The following shot was taken with a Canon 50 mm f/1.4 USM:

This shot was taken with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L USM at f/4 – 200 mm focal length:

Although the longer lens has a narrower aperture (f/4) than the 50mm (f/1.4) both of the lenses create equally good bokeh, the longer lens needing to be zoomed in quite tight on the subject though.

Getting creative

Bokeh doesn’t need anything in focus in the foreground to be interesting. I had some fun with the Christmas lighting along the river a few nights ago:

To make these I attached the 50mm f/1.4 lens mentioned earlier, and pushed my finger out in front of it. I set the aperture to f/2.0, focussed on my finger, turned off the auto focus on the lens and took the shots.

Have fun :)