@quietpurplehaze Thanks Hazel. There is indeed a lot of confusion about what constitutes bokeh and it isn't simply the parts of the image that are not in focus - 80% of my photo above is out of focus... but there's no bokeh in it!
Bokeh is the way that any given lens renders out-of-focus point sources of light, be they actual lights or, say, little points of sunlight shining through the branches of a tree. The supposed ideal is to have completely round bokeh 'blobs' but often a lens will render them as slightly oval or, more often, they take on the polygonal shape of the diaphragm: the fewer blades there are in the diaphragm, the more likely it is to render the bokeh highlights as a polygonal shape.
You're probably more confused than ever now 🤪 @yrhenwr
Richard, next time I am going to upload a shot with what I comsider bokeh, I shall flag it up to you and perhaps you will judge?! ( A friend gave me the technical definition of macro and for ages I just called everything ‘close-up’ in case I got it wrong!)
(Thanks to your comment on David's post, I have an ongoing debate in my mind about bokeh v background blur).
Bokeh is the way that any given lens renders out-of-focus point sources of light, be they actual lights or, say, little points of sunlight shining through the branches of a tree. The supposed ideal is to have completely round bokeh 'blobs' but often a lens will render them as slightly oval or, more often, they take on the polygonal shape of the diaphragm: the fewer blades there are in the diaphragm, the more likely it is to render the bokeh highlights as a polygonal shape.
You're probably more confused than ever now 🤪 @yrhenwr
Richard, next time I am going to upload a shot with what I comsider bokeh, I shall flag it up to you and perhaps you will judge?! ( A friend gave me the technical definition of macro and for ages I just called everything ‘close-up’ in case I got it wrong!)