Dirty Bokeh? Clean Your Front Element!

Having some dust or smudges on your lens’ front element generally doesn’t have a noticeable effect on your image quality, but photo enthusiast Alex Bowler recently discovered that having a dirty front element can do nasty things to bokeh. The before-and-after comparison above shows what Bowler’s out-of-focus areas looked like before and after cleaning his lens.

Image credits: Photographs by Alex Bowler and used with permission