Is the Ilex Seminat a soft focus lens?

[jnantz]

hi jody. im the guy whose website you linked to . I adjusted my name after I was being stalked ..
I think the 4 of us, Mark Hugo you and me might be the only people on the planet who own / use this lens, it sure is obscure!
I got mine from Dagor77 (Andrew Glover) maybe Flutot's Camera Repair adjusted it or made sure it was mounted with the right spacers ? not sure
I know sometimes it appears in a barrel ... and in a cine mount ..

sorry I have a habit of not keeping many images on-site, I've had a few issues over the years (stalking, stolen work &c ) so I sometimes delete my attachments... like when I used to goto the former analogy site, every once in a while I'd delete all my gallery images ...

regarding the images I posted, maybe I use a lens differently than most .. I fiddle around with it first, front / back focus, I use it in a variety of lighting ( bland, front / back lit blown out &c ) and a variety of exposures to figure out what it can do and then I just use it (as intended ( or un-intended ) I figure why not (expired film and paper negatives are cheep) I typically over expose everything by a few stops and process my film so it is nice and dense (some may say to excess) ...
sorry to hear you and Hugo and Mark aren't enjoying the lens as I have... if it wasn't twerked by flutot maybe mine was built/ assembled on a Wednesday when the Ilex workforce wasn't working off a hangover or making one? my 6" covers with a room to rent .. oh, the coffee bean photos were macro images on a 5x7 sheet ...some of the others were just with a speed graphic futzing around .. they were all developed in ansco 130 and coffee for about 12-15 mins ... or just ansco 70-72F 1:6 for about 8 1/2mins

[Jody_S]

Well that clears up a lot. To be more specific, I liked the images on your page, I just don't think the first few qualify as 'soft focus' in the traditional sense. And if that is what the lens does, or should I say if that is all the lens can do, then it would definitely fall in the 'junk' category.

I've been experimenting with 19th century landscape lenses with the front aperture/washer assembly removed, so I use my f22 Darlot landscape lens at f9, to get a more-than-soft effect, especially in a scene with strong highlights. The actual soft-focus lenses I've used (Velo II, Verito, Eidoscope) are designed for portaits, and are not nearly soft enough for what I'm trying to do. And tricks like flipping the middle element of a Cooke triplet do not give pleasing effects, IMHO, nor using magnifying glass elements or the like. So when I saw those images, I was intrigued by the Seminat.

[jnantz]

Well that clears up a lot. To be more specific, I liked the images on your page, I just don't think the first few qualify as 'soft focus' in the traditional sense. And if that is what the lens does, or should I say if that is all the lens can do, then it would definitely fall in the 'junk' category.

I've been experimenting with 19th century landscape lenses with the front aperture/washer assembly removed, so I use my f22 Darlot landscape lens at f9, to get a more-than-soft effect, especially in a scene with strong highlights. The actual soft-focus lenses I've used (Velo II, Verito, Eidoscope) are designed for portaits, and are not nearly soft enough for what I'm trying to do. And tricks like flipping the middle element of a Cooke triplet do not give pleasing effects, IMHO, nor using magnifying glass elements or the like. So when I saw those images, I was intrigued by the Seminat.

nah. not all it can do, I just didn't bother scanning the portrait and landscapey stuff I did with them that might be more straight forward, I hate to say it (but I am sure you have gathered this without me saying it outloud from the photographs I have on my website &c) but I find a lot of straight forward photography to be as boring as watching paint dry, I would have said grass grow but I don't want to jinx the grass I have growing right now so I will watch what I say . Maybe it's junk? not sure, seemed to do something I liked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .. YMMV

[Jody_S]

...I find a lot of straight forward photography to be as boring as watching paint dry, x

Whatever you're doing is working for you, and I'm sure you're not going to let comments from random people on the Internet change your mind anyway.

The lens doesn't make the photograph, the photographer does. That's why I bought a 'Seminat' for $30 instead of a Cooke knuckler for $4,000. If I can't make an image with it, that's my fault, not the lens'.

[jnantz]

Whatever you're doing is working for you, and I'm sure you're not going to let comments from random people on the Internet change your mind anyway.

The lens doesn't make the photograph, the photographer does. That's why I bought a 'Seminat' for $30 instead of a Cooke knuckler for $4,000. If I can't make an image with it, that's my fault, not the lens'.

yup, if it works for you don't change a thing, the lens seems to work for me, hope you find something that works for you ..
with regards to listening to a random people, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... it's hard on the internet, some random people's opinions I respect, but like anything else some people's egos get in the way of being helpful ( both person and online )... photographers are a cagey bunch ! ( you should have hung out with this guy I assisted years ago, he'd always give people bad advice just so their work wouldn't be anything like his, it's like not giving someone your grandmother's secret recipe for paklava, or emulsion scientists publishing wrong information / mistakes ) ...