>>3291179"Bokeh" refers to the qualities of the background blur, and the word is really only relevant and useful in conversations about gear, especially when describing a lens in detail that exceeds the knowledge of the average photographer. I find myself only really needing to use the word in two situations. The first is to describe what happens with lenses like the Canon 85mm f/1.2L, where the out of focus highlights of point light sources, nicknamed "bokeh balls," turn into weird shapes, like clipped cat's eyes in certain parts of the frame. Secondly, the phrase "busy bokeh" to contrast with "smooth bokeh" is sometimes useful if a lens produces background blur that is just indescribably distracting.
If the Japanese didn't dominate the camera industry, we could have gotten by just fine with "background blur" and "out of focus highlights" in English, but it's too late to go back now. I still think that if you're talking about characteristics of a composition or with non camera geeks, then you would want to use topics like "subject isolation" or maybe talk about the "shallow depth of field" of the photo. "Bokeh" is still a very obscure, technical term, no matter how you pronounce it.
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