About Me

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Monroe, Ohio, United States
Began my photography career as most people do...the highschool yearbook. Upon graduation I attended the US Naval Photography School in Pensacola Fla. After getting a qualification in basic photography and then later attending their Portrait School,was assigned to a military operation. Experiences included USO photography for Bob Hope, Brooke Shields, Kathy Lee Crosby and Wayne Newton.Have also had the opportunity for travel assignments to places such as Beruit, Israel, Africa, Australia, Brazil, Italy, Spain and England. Upon exiting the Navy in 1984,opened up a Tanning Salon and Health Club in Oxford,Ohio and began photographing weddings, all as a vehicle to fund my way through college. I enjoy travel, sports photography, special event and Cincinnati Reds photography. I am frequently contracted as a sports photographer by parents, sports teams, and organizations,throughout the Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio areas, to provide the highest quality sports photography, both on an individual and team basis.

February 11, 2011

The Difference Between Bokeh And Depth Of Field

       Joe Markiewicz autographed Home Run baseball presented to Vincent Rush. Photo by Vincent Rush

Bokeh and depth of field, both the techniques help the photographers in creating beautiful photographs. In the approach of photographing at lower f-numbers, the distinction between depth of field and bokeh vanishes and the hobbyists and enthusiasts often end up using the terms bokeh and DOF interchangeably. To photograph the aesthetics of the subject and the background, one should be clear about what DOF and bokeh stand for. To effectively use the two techniques, let’s have a quick view at depth of field, bokeh and the differences between the two.

What Is Depth Of Field

The depth of field refers to the area of sharp focus in a photograph. When taking a photograph, sometimes it may be desirable to have the entire image sharp and at other times you may be interested in focusing only a small portion of the scene. You can easily achieve the desired effect by tuning the camera to aperture priority mode for either high depth of field or small depth of field.

A high depth of field is the scenario where everything in the plane of focus is in sharp focus. The shallow depth of field on the other hand is the technique of focusing only a small portion of the plane of focus resulting in effectively focused subject amidst defocused background and foreground. The shallow depth of field helps in profoundly separating the subject by beautifully blurring the background clutter.

What Is Bokeh

Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of blur in out of focus areas of the image. Bokeh is the terminology used for defining the quality of blur achieved at shallow depth of field. Bokeh thus refers to the quality of blurred imagery rendered by the lens for out-of-focus points of light.
The bokeh refers to the circular discs formed as the result of blurring the background. The pronounced  bokeh effect is created when the camera is tuned for shallow depth of field. The effective brightness in the background of the subject renders  beautiful imagery to the out-of-focus areas, thus, resulting in smooth, soft circular discs in the background.

The Difference Between Bokeh And Depth Of Field

The above definitions clarify the fact that the depth of field and the bokeh are not same. While depth of field is the technique of presenting the area of sharp focus, bokeh is the craft of artistically presenting the out-of-focus area of an image. Bokeh is more of a qualitative aspect of the photograph. You can eventually identify the bokeh as good or bad, but there is no way to adjudge the depth of field in terms of qualitative adjectives. The DOF is determined by the camera-to-subject distance, the lens focal length, the lens f-number, and the format size or circle of confusion criterion. The bokeh on the other hand is influenced by influence the phenomena outside the focal plane like foreground / background brightness, lens aberration, speed of the lens, color and shapes & patterns of the subject, etc.

Thus we can say that bokeh is dependent on depth of field but depth of field is in no way dependent on the bokeh. The bokeh and the depth of field are two different techniques used for specific purposes. The sole purpose of depth of field is to represent the area of sharp focus in the photograph, whereas bokeh is artistic quality of out-of-focus area. The two techniques (shallow depth of field and beautiful bokeh effect) when used together produce stunningly beautiful and creative results.




Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of http://mainstreetmonroe.com and Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.com Check out my about.me profile!

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