And if you're shopping for a lens, and think this stuff matters, then it helps to inform your decision making. That knowledge help you to use whatever you've got to your advantage. but mostly it's nice to know how your own lenses will behave when throwing various textures and light sources/reflections out of focus. It's nice to have choices and everything. well, the harsher, ring-like bokeh of the 50/1.8 or the 60/2.8 may - in their ugliness - actually work better. which bokeh quality is best serving the purpose of the photograph? If the photographer wants that background well out of focus, but has a narrative reason to communicate that the OoF object is glassy. Of those three primes, the Sigma definitely has the "better" bokeh, in terms of overall creaminess - which is especially obivious when you watch how it's handling those reflective glints on the object in the background. Then the ubiquitous Nikon 50/1.8, also wide open:Īnd the the Nikon 60/2.8 Micro (a macro lens) Here's are some quick back yard bokeh test shots from another thread where I got into this same subject. My 85mm f1.8 has what I consider good bokeh when wide open. A "good" lens will have it behind the focus point because usually we don't care as much about the foreground's bokeh as much as the background's. This will tend to create a "creamy" out of focus rather then a confused multiple image out of focus area.įinally, as I understand the physics of it, a lens will have good bokeh (if it does at all) behind or in front of the focus point, not both. Note that this does not mean that it only applies to out of focus point sources of light, but a lens the demonstrates a subjective "good" bokeh would behave this way when showing such. The key, again, my understanding only, is that the blob is rounded, as opposed to hexagonal for example, and smooth - ideally with a gradual decrease in luminosity from center to edge. It is my understanding the the general character that usually causes bokeh to be considered "good" is that which turns points of light that are out of focus into blobs that are smooth centroids, rather than sharply defined circles with bright and abrupt rings at their outer perimeter.