Portrait Vs Bokeh. Differences You Must KNOW (Simple Guide)

Background blur and Bokeh are the terms often used in portrait photography. Some of these terms are confusing too. Some people think that merely this background blur is called Bokeh. But these are two different things. 

Background blurring is used to make your subject stand out. That’s why it’s popular with portrait photography. But Bokeh adds a magical touch to photos by adding effects that were not originally present.

According to an experienced professional photographer, Joseph Finkleman, Bokeh is just a fancy word for out of focus area(OOF). It is an aesthetic quality of how pretty the out-of-focus area is. And It is considered as a minor visual characteristic instead of a mode. Otherwise, no app, switch, or incantation will activate this particular model.

Meaning of Bokeh

Bokeh is a Japanese word meaning blur. It sometimes describes the patterns of light within the out-of-focus areas. These patterns vary infinitely depending on the differences in lens aberration and shape of the aperture. 

Some lenses produce pleasant bokeh, others produce unpleasant bokeh and it depends upon the photographer’s skills. Bokeh is often associated with highlighted background areas like specular reflections and light sources. Holiday lights and other highly reflective objects are often photographed this way. 

When they are purposely blurred, they appear soft, pastel, diffused orbs of glowing light. So another use of bokeh is to soften brightly lit photographs. It can be used to draw focus towards the subject and separate it from the not-so-photogenic background. But it’s not limited to these highlights. Blur can be anywhere outside the depth of field.

How to achieve Bokeh?

Although diffused blurring is a characteristic of a photograph, the lens used can visibly alter the size and shape of Bokeh. The shape of diaphragm blades also affects the highlights. A lens with more circular shaped blades produces more rounded softer OOF areas. 

Similarly, a hexagonal-shaped aperture will reflect a hexagonal shape in highlights. It is also advisable to use fast prime lenses. Another tip to increase the likelihood of creating Bokeh If you don’t own a very fast lens or a wide aperture is to increase the distance between the subject to be focused and the background. 

The further the background is, the more shallow will be the depth of focus and it will create more out-of-focus areas. Or you can move as close to your subject as you can. This effect can be enhanced by using lights coming from the back, side, or above. That’s why bokeh is considered a part of portrait mode.

It is applied in selective focus mode by using the shallow focus technique where we focus on an object which is less than a few feet apart and the rest of the image is blurred. In this mode, the aperture is wide open and it is called maximum F/stop. 

The more the length of the lens, the easier it becomes to focus on an object and blur the rest of the image. Also, the increase in focal length creates extreme Bokeh. You can use f/2.8, f/2,f/1.8, or f/1.4. 

It is achieved by applying shooting mode of aperture priority or manually choosing aperture size and shutter speed. Aperture priority mode has no effect on shutter speed and the camera controls it automatically. You can also apply flexible program Mode for choosing the best combination of the widest possible aperture and shutter speed.

Portrait Mode

Portraits are the best examples of manifest Bokeh. Close-up portraits and macro images of nature produce Bokeh.

Unlike bokeh, the portrait is a proper mode in user-friendly cameras(mobile cameras). In this mode, we want to focus on the face and the background is blurred. It is designed to capture the subtleties of infinitely variable skin colors. 

This enables it to capture subtle yet real skin characteristics. It is achieved by standing 6 to 10 feet apart from a person’s face and using a longer lens ranging from 85 to 135mm in full-frame.

In smartphones, two cameras create the effect by creating slight differences between images to determine how far the subject is from the camera. If a single camera is used it takes technical tricks and a lot of machine learning to differentiate between the subject and its surrounding.

How to achieve a quality portrait effect?

What you can do is to pick the background that contrasts your subject. If the person you’re taking a portrait of is wearing light clothing, you’ll have to find a dark background. If they’re wearing dark clothing, put them in front of a light one. 

It’s not just color contrasts that you should look for. You can also find contrast in textures. Use a plain background if your subject has soft, floppy hair. An oft-textured background will end up blurring some parts of the hair.

 On the other hand, if your subject is wearing a plain white T-shirt, have them stand in front of a highly textured surface like some trees. This gives your phone an easy time figuring out the difference, and the background will end up looking great in the final image. Remember to vary the amount of blur for a more natural look.

In simple, Bokeh is an effect and Portrait is a mode. Most of the mobile cameras have the pre-set portrait mode where the bokeh effect will be the same. Experienced photographers don’t use such auto settings. They would love to change the OOF area in a picture. Bokeh is the quality of the out-of-focused area in terms of blur and the effect. The shape of the Bokeh is rely on the quality of your lens. 

Conclusion

The portrait is a nifty photography feature that can level up your photography game big time if used properly. Bokeh is a part of portrait mode.

However,  the effect produced as a result of the portrait is not “real.” This effect is produced by using the smartphone’s processor instead of just the smartphone’s lenses. 

Software and camera hardware work together to apply this effect to an image. Because you’re relying on software, results can vary. An important part of the picture or detail of the face may be blurred.The process usually goes well when there is a clear separation, but the software struggles when there is an ambiguity in terms of distance, contrast, and color. That’s why artificially produced bokeh is more useful than the computational algorithm to create portrait mode effects. But engineers are working on improving these algorithms.