Garden In Good Shape
The weather changed suddenly from cold to hot about a week ago. So much so that we had the AC running non-stop for three days. During that time, we also had rain, which accelerated the blooming of many flowers in the back and front yards. But, because of the wind, rain, and heat, we did not get a chance to fully enjoy them.
Try a New Lens
Yesterday I used a lens I borrowed from Dennis to take a few quick photographs of the flowers in the backyard. Some are passing, some may show rain damage, but I did not want to pass the opportunity to shoot a few quick ones. The lens, Canon 70-200 IS with f-2.8 maximum opening produced genuinely nice boke* in the background and good detail in the flowers. Here are the salient views from the garden. Thanks, Dennis, for the use of the lens. More flowers from the garden are in a different post.
You Say Bo-Kah, I Say Bo-Ke
*boke (bo-ke)– A Japanese word, meaning “fuzzy mind”, used to describe the quality of the out-of-focus parts of the photograph. I chose the spelling of the Japanese word using Latin characters, although the photographic world seems to prefer a variant bokeh with the “h” deliberately added to imply pronunciation as “bo-ke.” It somehow took a life of its own, and the pronunciation became one of “bo-kah,” “bow-kay,” “boo-kay,” and so on.
According to Michael Johnston, the originator of the spelling with the “h”, the correct way to say the word is in two distinct sounds “bo” as in Bo Derek, and “ke” as in kettle. Here is a paper from Zeiss (the document is missing on Zeiss Site, 9/12/2014) talking about the concepts of “Depth of Field,” “Depth of Focus,” and “Bokeh”. Here is a write-up on Michael Johnston’s site.
Gena Burris
The aperture is a group of several blades which form a circle or octagon through which the light passes to the sensor. Apertures which utilize more blades or have curved blades will produce more circular-shaped light bursts in the bokeh, while apertures with more octagonal openings produce a similarly-shaped light burst. Many photographers prefer the circular bokeh to the more octagonal shapes. Generally, more expensive lenses use more blades and/or utilize curved aperture blades in an effort to produce a more circular bokeh.