what is bokeh?

It is pronounced like "I gave her a boquet of flowers".

The blured background in a photo is the bokeh. Good bokeh will be nice and smooth, bad bokeh will not be as smooth and may have a lot of circular areas in the blurred area.

Russell
--



http://www.photobama.com
http://www.pbase.com/sardian

See profile for gear.

the EF 85 f1.2 L and the EF 135 f2.0 L

Although I must say that I'm getting very pleasing background blur from my 50 f1.4 also. But it's all so relative.

Earthlight

Pyogenes said:

I agree the duration of the "O" in bone is too long, but i always
thought the "o" in bottle sounded a lot more like "a" sound in
"baka." Perhaps the difference is in our accents in english? I'm
from Chicago so speak a tad nasal [or rather everyone else speaks
flat ;-) ], so that very well could be the cause...

Click to expand...

Nice to see a post from someone with some knowledge in Japanese.

Could you please clarify an important thing concerning pronounciation?

The explanation given by Mike Johnston (bo as in "bone"; keh as in "Kenneth") is similar to the one given in your earlier post (bo as in "bone"; keh as in ketchup). See my earlier post (below) on this.

Above, you clarify that the sound should not be as long as in "bone".

To me, the more important question is: Do the Japanese use diphthongs in the word "boke" (as in the English "bone") or not (as in "bottle", for example, disregarding the exact sound of the vowel itself)?

The use of diphthongs is common in English pronounciation of foregin words, even when the original language does not have them. The pronounciation of the French word "trébuchet" comes to mind...

Frankly, I would be surprised if the Japanese do use diphthongs here, but then, you learn new things every day...

Looking forward to your reply.

Regards,
PatrikD

I can't find a Japanese word "bokeajee". Maybe my dictionary is bad.
I tried a few possible variations of Japanese writing of that.

I do find "boke" as 'becoming dull' or 'becoming blur' or even "dumb person". Not that it matters, I just looked up for fun.

PatrikD said:

Pyogenes said:

I agree the duration of the "O" in bone is too long, but i always
thought the "o" in bottle sounded a lot more like "a" sound in
"baka." Perhaps the difference is in our accents in english? I'm
from Chicago so speak a tad nasal [or rather everyone else speaks
flat ;-) ], so that very well could be the cause...

Click to expand...

Nice to see a post from someone with some knowledge in Japanese.

Click to expand...

I'll point out again that my knowledge is very rudimentary at best so take anything I say with a grain of salt. As i always tell people, I only speak two languages - bad english and nerd. ;-)

PatrikD said:

Could you please clarify an important thing concerning pronounciation?

The explanation given by Mike Johnston (bo as in "bone"; keh as in
"Kenneth") is similar to the one given in your earlier post (bo as
in "bone"; keh as in ketchup). See my earlier post (below) on this.

Above, you clarify that the sound should not be as long as in "bone".

To me, the more important question is: Do the Japanese use
diphthongs in the word "boke" (as in the English "bone") or not (as
in "bottle", for example, disregarding the exact sound of the vowel
itself)?

Click to expand...

no dipthongs in "boke." In romanized japanese, the vowel sound would be indicated with a double vowel like "ou" in arigatou (thank you). It should be noted that dipthongs have a duration roughly twice as long as a single vowel, so the pronunication would be further changed.

So "bottle" is closer since it doesn't use a dipthong, but the pronunciation of that vowel is not quite right. It should be a crisper O sound - not a lazy, nasal sound - at least that's how I say bottle ;-)

Thanks for pointing out the error in my pronunciation guide - I'll make note of it next time this topic comes up.

One thing to note - every Japanese language text book that I've seen indicates to use the english long O like "bone" for that japanese vowel. A couple texts did mention that the sound is actually a bit shorter, but none discussed the fact that a long O in english is actually two vowel sounds blended into one.

PatrikD said:

The use of diphthongs is common in English pronounciation of
foregin words, even when the original language does not have them.
The pronounciation of the French word "trébuchet" comes to mind...

Frankly, I would be surprised if the Japanese do use diphthongs
here, but then, you learn new things every day...

Click to expand...

--
Joe

http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites (Not exactly a good example of photography...)

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.

If the word were spelled bokei, then boquet would be pretty close.

see discussion above for right pronunication.

--
Joe

http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites (Not exactly a good example of photography...)

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.

Bon K said:

I can't find a Japanese word "bokeajee". Maybe my dictionary is
bad.
I tried a few possible variations of Japanese writing of that.

Click to expand...

I guess it's just not an official word or considered to be jargon so unnecessary in a common word dictionary.

Bon K said:

I do find "boke" as 'becoming dull' or 'becoming blur' or even
"dumb person". Not that it matters, I just looked up for fun.

Click to expand...

All I know is that a native speaker told me it's never used by itself but as part of a word.

--
Joe

http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites (Not exactly a good example of photography...)

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.

Perhaps the word Joe means is boke-aji.

Joe, I'm from the UK where the o in bottle and hot rarely has any a character to it, while it's common in several regional US dialects. I was surpised when I moved to the East coast from UK to rent a flat (sorry, apartment) that the landlord said he had already switched on the "hat water" for me Therefore I think we're saying the same thing : it's a short version of the o in bone.

There is no one word English equivalent. Blur, fuzziness, confusion are some of the meanings - my favourite is "jisa boke" meaning jet-lag ; literally it means time-change confusion ! It's also used to describe the state of mind of someone going senile.

The correct spelling (or at least the original from French and how most folks spell it) is BOUQUET. It is only in the US that this is pronounced like the bow in bow and arrow. In France and elsewhere, it's pronounced boo "kay". Either way, the kay sound is also too long, so the ke in ketchup or kettle is more accurate

AJSJones said:

Perhaps the word Joe means is boke-aji.

Click to expand...

yes, I originally typed "bokeaji" but didn't notice the change in spelling by the previous poster. I didn't realize the english version was hyphenated.

AJSJones173687 said:

Joe, I'm from the UK where the o in bottle and hot rarely has any a
character to it, while it's common in several regional US dialects.
I was surpised when I moved to the East coast from UK to rent a
flat (sorry, apartment) that the landlord said he had already
switched on the "hat water" for me Therefore I think we're
saying the same thing : it's a short version of the o in bone.

Click to expand...

Glad we were able to figure out the discrepency.

--
Joe

http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites (Not exactly a good example of photography...)

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.

Joe - thanks for the boke-aji hint. Here's a good link ( https://photojpn.org/words/len.html ) that really helps the situation. The word used in Japan is indeed boke-aji and it's in the list there towards the top. The kanji they used for aji is what I had guessed it might be - the one meaning taste or flavour.
So now we have the whole story for once (at least for me):

boke means "blurriness or fuzziness" and "aji" means flavor, taste (i.e. aesthetic quality)

Now I really can "taste" the bokeh of the new 85 1.2

Andy

Use a search engine to find the answer to a question like this, not a discussion board.

Jeff Varszegi said:

Use a search engine to find the answer to a question like this, not
a discussion board.

Click to expand...

Yes sir. I'm sorry to offend you. I didn't do to bad though. 28 positive
comments and only 1 negitive. I'd say them some good odds. 8-D's

--
don't surround yourself with yourself...
move on back two squares

Come visit me at:
http://www.pbase.com/keithallenlaw
See my profile for what i shoot with.

Jeff Varszegi said:

Use a search engine to find the answer to a question like this, not
a discussion board.

Click to expand...

Use etiquette much? Using a topical discussion board to ask questions and received topical answers is EXACTLY what forums such as this are for. An internet search often retrieves a broad range of results from unqualified sources. Here, poster's credentials can be fairly quickly established by prior posts, etc. Also, the concentration of subject matter experts and skilled respondents is higher.

Next time, perhaps you should ask yourself what your post is supposed to accomplish, and is it written in such a way that it has a reasonably high chance of success? I'd venture that you failed at both.

My mother taught me to say something nice whenever I say something uncomplimentary to someone, so here it is:

This picture of yours is tremendously cute:

Those are some wise words to live by. It takes a big person to do that.
You have a good mother Allen. Thanks for contributing to this thread.
I never new there where so many knowledgable people on this subject,
in a camera forum. Cheers! 8-D

Allen42 said:

My mother taught me to say something nice whenever I say something
uncomplimentary to someone, so here it is:

Click to expand...

--
don't surround yourself with yourself...
move on back two squares

Come visit me at:
http://www.pbase.com/keithallenlaw
See my profile for what i shoot with.