Chasing bokeh: Fuji 50/2

Truman Prevatt wrote:

TEAS wrote:

Does sterile mean it is sharp lacks distortion? I generally find that these vague, undefined words are meaningless in terms of scientific reality.

Photography is not a science - it is an art.

Photography certainly is a science as well as an art. Look at the rest of what you wrote after this... its all science. Photography can be used to make art, but its origins are certainly a scientific discovery and has its roots in chemistry and physics.

Of course one might argue that there are multiple aspects to photography but at the end of the day even in plain simple documentation - the more artistic the presentation the better the product.

You cannot categorically say this...

And of course as an art form there are subjective descriptions which are used to describe the quality of an image. If you are not familiar with the language used to commonly describe the emotional context of art - then this might help.

Yes, to describe art...not lens attributes.  Only camera nerds go to a museum and talk about bokeh.

Part of the quality in a lens is giving the photographer the ability to control the out of focus areas so the eye (and attention ) is not distracted away from the main theme ...

It can be used this way, but bokeh is not a key compositional element... it is one type of isolation technique. An overused one... and many famous photographs do not rely on bokeh at all.