Bokeh Balls & Bubbles

Be enchanted by the charm that lovely bokeh brings to images

Bokeh is generally the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image caused by the lens’ circles of confusion. But bokeh is not just bokeh. It can be smooth and creamy, wild and exciting, or nervous and annoying. Everyone has their opinion of what is pleasing bokeh.

Not every lens is capable of producing pleasing bokeh. However, what is pleasant is totally up to you. I like it smooth or wild. Wild bokeh can be incredible or destroy an image single-handedly.

Different lenses are capable of certain types of it. Triplet lenses tend to produce these delicious soap bubbles. Helios 44 lenses (maybe not all of them), based on the Zeiss Biotar design, can produce the exciting swirly variety. Modern lenses are usually better corrected for all kinds of optical flaws and often do not exhibit the wilder side of the bokeh world, but sometimes, when all the stars align, the magic happens. Some modern lenses are built to create exciting bokeh. I’m looking at Lensbaby, modern Meyer-Optik lenses, TTArtisan, etc.

I own a few vintage and not-so-vintage lenses that are capable of producing outstanding bokeh. That does not mean it will happen all the time. But when the object of my desire, the background, and the light conditions come together, it will happen. New images will be added to this project as I manage to get things done correctly, which is a learning process—an exciting one.

I hope you enjoy the photos. I had a blast creating them.