The term comes from the Japanese word boke ( 暈け/ボケ), which means 'blur' or 'haze', resulting in boke-aji ( ボケ味), the 'blur quality'. The opposite of bokeh-an image in which multiple distances are visible and all are in focus-is deep focus. However, bokeh is not limited to highlights blur occurs in all regions of an image which are outside the depth of field. Photographers may deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions, accentuating their lens's bokeh.īokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas. Some lens designs blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce distracting or unpleasant blurring ('good' and 'bad' bokeh, respectively). Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause very different bokeh effects. Bokeh has also been defined as 'the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light'. In photography, bokeh ( / ˈ b oʊ k ə/ BOH-kə or / ˈ b oʊ k eɪ/ BOH-kay Japanese: ) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image, caused by Circles of Confusion.
