Bokeh: what it is and how to take photos with a perfectly blurred background

Boke, in the original language 暈 け or ボ ケ, is a Japanese word that means blurry and refers to blur, that part of a photo where every outline loses definition. The spelling bokeh is an American distortion created to make the pronunciation understood and the use of this word has now become widespread, so we will continue to call it that too.

Everything around the focus point becomes soft, the edges and contours loosen, the depth of field implodes on itself. But don’t think about a blurred photo, no it’s a substantial difference, but a subtle one. The blur radiates from the focus point like a wave when you throw a stone into the water, it starts from the point of impact and then widens more and more, becoming more and more marked as you move away from the focus point. But to explain it we must also talk about depth of field, that is what the camera sees and is in focus, everything around that is not in focus is bokeh: here we say that the boke is a “creative” out of focus.

Think about the classic Christmas lights, if you put them in the background and photograph them with a very strong aperture, for example with an aperture of 1.8, then those lights become blurred, from simple threads they become pools of diffused shine that expands.

And in fact, bokeh is sought in portraits of people, in landscapes, in the details of a building or a work of art or architecture, but it is also very useful when photographing food and cocktails. It can also be used with a plate of pasta, let’s take a plate of rigatoni with tomato sauce. Focus the basil on top and blur everything else, this creates bokeh all around.

One of the definitions you will hear most often when it comes to bokeh is the word creamy, but what does that mean?

It means that the bokeh is successful, that is, the blur is soft, gradual and has a credible development, it is not done haphazardly, but it has been reasoned and tested. The focus points have been carefully selected to render an image. And that’s the tricky part of bokeh, being able to do it as naturally as possible.

The composition must communicate, it must detail the most important detail, make it emerge from the two dimensions and at the same time “erase” the background, blend it to put it in the background so that it does not distract the attention of the focal point of the photo. But it’s not just a question of skill, to make a blur a lot depends on the quality of the lens and the focus points of the camera.

Why does the effect happen?

Explaining the concept of bokeh is very simple, it was not invented, the blur has always been used. Bokeh is created when you drastically reduce the depth of field, focus on a person’s eye and take pictures, that’s all. Except that the Japanese with a flash of genius and thanks to such an expressive language, managed to give a name (and poetry) to an effect, filling it with positive feelings, so much so that it is almost considered introspective, relaxing photography. Especially if you do nature photography and your subjects are trees, forests, fountains and Zen gardens.

Why should you use bokeh: how and when to use this technique?

It is not used for panoramas to be done with a wide-angle, but obviously to highlight detail by creating a more evocative atmosphere, especially if you can work with the light you will create dreamlike settings that are difficult to reproduce.

Another undoubted advantage of bokeh is that you can focus on a single detail without thinking too much about the setting and this comes in handy when you are out of your studio and you can’t get married to many objects, walls, false backgrounds.

Think of an evening in a club, they are making cocktails and you want to photograph the bartender: what do you do? Start with an aperture of 2.8 and do some tests and then try to open more and more up to 1.8. But be careful in this way the field, the depth of field, narrows and capturing small objects such as a flower or the liquid that drips into a shaker becomes more difficult. But at the same time, you can leave out the outline and focus on the details, creating spectacular photos.

How to recreate the bokeh effect

Put a plate or a bottle in the foreground, place the camera on the tripod and distribute strips of lights or LEDs further away, well detached in the background. Set the aperture to 1.8 or 1.4 even better and photograph, focusing on a particular. The important thing to remember is that the blur effect increases proportionally to the distance of the photographed subject and the background. So you with the photo

But the bokeh is not just cool drops of lights: even when you put a bowl, pine nuts and raw pasta in the background, it’s not just the blur of the lights. And you don’t necessarily have to carry lights with you all the time. A trick to recreate beautiful light bokeh effects is to place crystal glasses near the plate and try to hit the glasses with a light, which can also be natural and then photograph.

So always use everything around you and reflect the light for bokeh effects, be it glasses, cutlery, plates or street lamps outside a shop window or a neon sign. Just look around and search, change your point of view: we often have everything we need close by. A quick example: you are in a restaurant or a club. Place the plate on a table or counter and use the lights that come down from above or the bottles behind the counter or a window overlooking the street where there are street lamps, signs or cars passing by.

So that’s it, just buy a 50MM at 1.8 and you can do some wild bokeh? Yes, that’s true or at least partially. Let’s say that the first step in taking photos with a blurred background, but then you will have to learn to tame this technique, it’s not just the blur you need, but the harmony, composition and solidity of the bokeh. And remember that it’s the lens that does the blur, not the camera, so even if you don’t have a new Sony A9, start practicing.

What are the most suitable lenses to recreate the bokeh effect

And here the pains begin, forget about the objectives that stop at an aperture of 4, you must at least reach 2.8, better if you can push yourself up to 1.8 and 1.4. The most used lenses to recreate the bokeh effect are macro and telephoto lenses, but even a simple 50mm or some wide-angle lenses with an aperture of 2.8 are excellent.

As for advice on wide-angle lenses, it is understood that used for close-ups on dishes and food they deform, but the beauty is just that, the deformation, playing on the asymmetries and verticality that you can impress on a photo. In any case, when you use wide angles a minimum of correction in post-production is necessary to make the photo more precise.