Tips & Tricks
The Definitive ‘Bokeh’ Pronunciation Guide | Bokeh? Bookah? Bokkay?
Anytime you have enough photographers in the same room, you’ll hear multiple pronunciations of one tricky word: Bokeh. We know that it’s the quality or rendering of the out of focus areas of an image and that it’s determined by the optics of the lens, we’re just a little unsure of how exactly to say the word aloud.
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Well, wonder no longer! Lok (of DigitalRev fame) is now working for Photo Gear News, and has produced a video to shed some light on the subject. After asking a variety of people with vastly different opinions on the matter, he speaks with Ryu Nagase, a genuine Japanese-speaker who is a high-level official at Canon, thus making him the ideal authority on the subject in question.
Check out the video below for precise clarification, but essentially (spoiler alert) it’s pronounced exactly the way that it’s spelled. Don’t overthink it.
It like Okay. It is produced by the reflection of light going through the iris diafra.m. If the iris is very round with many leafs, like 9-11 or it is angled with less leaves, it will look angular.