There is a Japanese term that has been picked up by photographers to describe the out of focus portions of an image. They refer to it as bokeh, which gives me a chuckle to see it written in US magazines because it can be used as a derogatory to describe a klutz as well. But, for better or worse, that is the term of choice. Some people seem to care more about the out of focus that the in-focus.

There is something to it. The quality of the out of focus portions are indicative of the quality of a lens, A smooth "creamy" out of focus effect offsets the in-focus portions and helps lead the eye without being distracting. Now, I don't get to play with very fast lenses much, my lenses tend to start at f2 or slower. The reason this matters is that the faster the lens (faster because it lets more light in at once), the shallower the depth of field (or "in-focus") area. An 85mm f2 and an 85mm f1.4 will let in the same amount of light at f2, but the f1.4 can open up wider and let in twice as much light at f1.4 (which the f2 lens can't do). This requires more glass and engineering, so the lenses are heavier and more expensive to produce.

Not owning an 85mm f1.4, I happened to be talking to my uncle Bill when it occurred to me I should ask him if he had one. He did indeed, so we set out on a bone chilling day to visit the Fog Museum at Harvard University. I borrowed Bill's Contax S2 with the 85mm F1.4 lens. The S2 is a remarkable fully manual camera with a shutter that will fire at 1/4000th of a second and flash sync up to 1/250th of a second. This particular lens, a Zeiss T* coated lens, is a particularly fine optic with world class photographic capabilities.

We visited the museum and wandered through Harvard Square just as the sun was setting. I asked Amie to stand in a ray of light cutting through a tree in front a brick building. Focusing was slightly challenging as the extremely shallow depth of field would allow me to have the tip of Amie's nose out of focus but her eyes in focus. This is a manual focus lens.

So, we continued to shoot around the area, and I was playing with shots just to exaggerate the depth of field characteristics. I was shooting not for composition but rather for the sharpness and bokeh. The light faded so quickly that there wasn't much I could do. The bench was shot in full shadow. The upshot is that the lens being so fast allowed me to use a fairly fast shutter speed.

When I received the film back from the local processor I was equally impressed by the vibrancy of the color and the quality of the lens. I bummed a roll of film off of Bill (his camera, lens, and film - I will have to remember to do something nice), Kodak Ultra Color 400. I hadn't used this print film before and I was truly surprised by the beautiful shades of blue. These images are scans of the prints, so they don't carry the micro-sharpness of a negative scan, but you get a sense of the bokeh and color.

So, the lens certainly held up to its reputation. It is a beautiful lens and it throws backgrounds out of focus with a soft touch. An 85 f1.4 is a must have for the serious portrait photographers (or a good 50mm f1.4 for Digital APC size sensors). It was everything I was hoping to see.