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Old 04-25-2010, 09:14 PM
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LeeR LeeR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Benji View Post
I've been a professional photographer for over 28 years and I have a degree in photography and I have used f/1.8 maybe ten times during that entire time. It seems to me the only people concerned with "bokeh" are amateurs, and internet "pros" who don't know the difference between a hole in the ground and an aperture. I had never even heard the term bokeh before about 2005 or so and in fact I had to look it up to see what it meant.

It seems for some strange reason my clients are more concerned about how they look in their portrait, not how the background looks or whether the bokeh is good. Maybe that is because the main thing in a portrait is the subject. Everything else is secondary (or less) in importance.

Benji
Thank you, Benji, I couldn't agree with you more. The first time I heard bokeh mentioned I thought it was clever but not that important. Unfortunately, it has taken on a life of its own and entirely out of proportion to its significance to the craft. If it helps people pay more attention to the background, then that's great; but the idea that people are buying lenses simple because they thing it will create better 'bokeh' is ludicrous.
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