Last night I learned that “bokeh” is photographers’ lingo for Specular Highlights. Bryan Peterson refers to specular highlights as the out of focus points of light in a photograph; he also says the shape is determined by the size of the aperture. The only perfectly round “bokeh” occur when the lens is wide open; any other aperture produces an octagonal reflection. When the sun came out today, I tried to capture this phenomenon, a challenge because the sun drifted in and out behind massive cloud formations.
I don’t know whether the wide open lens is perfectly round. It doesn’t look round to me. In fact, they both look slightly octagonal. The first photo was taken with the largest aperture (f/5.6). I’ll have to experiment with other lenses to see if the bokeh look rounder. I think my 35mm prime lens results in perfectly round bokeh. If the sun comes out again, I may add another post using that lens.
Lens at 200mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/160
SOOC
Lens at 200mm
ISO 100
f/11
1/40
SOOC
Beautiful, beautiful bokeh!!! Wow! Looks very round to me- and there is so MUCH! Lovely!
Thank you. I have been looking at too much bokeh today. Sometimes it looks round and sometimes it looks octagonal. But something to experiment with on another day.