Soft Focus Portrait Lens for 2x3?

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Hi folks

I've long been interested in old lenses such as Petzvals for portrait work, but have only just become aware of the single meniscus and achromatic doublet types like the Struss and Pinkham & Smith through reading the threads here.

I'm wanting to do some portraiture with my Century Graphic 23 and have been wondering what lens options might exist.

I have a pair of beautiful projector lenses made by Kershaw for Gaumont-Kalee in the 1950s, they are Petzvals and on 35mm and digital they are my favourite lenses to shoot portraits with, but I don't think mounting one of these things with any kind of shutter for my Century is going to be in any way practical, sadly.

So, over to you guys, what lenses, and they will have to be under 200mm for the Century, are possibilities? Could I simply make my own from a meniscus or a doublet? I'm open to any/all ideas, no matter how outlandish.

A couple of portraits with my 5-inch Kershaw Petzval projector lens on NEX-3:

9398093981

[Tin Can]

Great idea! I am glad you started this thread. I cannot wait to see how it develops. I shoot 2X3 while learning, cheaper faster. I also have several Graphics, one a Speed Graphic which would be ideal for this with it's FPS.

[Mark Sawyer]

So, over to you guys, what lenses, and they will have to be under 200mm for the Century, are possibilities? Could I simply make my own from a meniscus or a doublet? I'm open to any/all ideas, no matter how outlandish.

There are 120mm and 200mm Imagons, 5", 6.5", and 7.25" Verito's, and all sorts of small old Landscape Lenses that can be opened up...

In the do-it-yourself category, you can space the front element of a Tessar forward (and there are tons of them in all sizes at very reasonable prices), or re-purpose another lens; magnifying glasses, binocular and telescope front elements, strong diopters and close-up auxiliary lenses...

Here are a couple of links to get you going:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?35097-A-new-line-of-Chinese-pictorial-lenses!
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?35482-From-a-30-vintage-Pinkham-amp-Smith-lens

[BrianShaw]

Fujinon SF were also in similar focal lengths as the Imagons.

[Jon Shiu]

You could bust a Holga apart and mount that lens to your lens board or shutter.

Ilex Portrait Lens 105mm f3.5 is a nice lens in shutter.

Jon

[Stefaan VB]

The Schneider Symmar 1:5,6/100mm is also a soft-focus portrait lens, when used without the front part. Then it becomes a 1:12/175 (printed in green on the lens) soft-focus lens .

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Thanks guys, given me plenty to think about there.

Mark, that's great work with the simple cheap positive lens. I threw a big cardboard box full of assorted lens elements out a few months ago sadly, but I have a few things I could utilise. I have several brand new unused 5cm diameter uncoated positive lenses, could try one of those, I also have a couple of broken zooms I could raid for elements.

That's a very interesting idea about using the front element of a Tessar. I happen to have a Kodak Anastigmat 124mm lens from a 116 folder that is too soft for general use, it happens to be in a fully working Compur #00 with a non-standard real cell thread diameter so the whole thing I had put to one side as fairly useless, but it would be really simple to remove the rear cell and the second element of the front cell leaving just the front element, this appeals to me as it comes with a shutter.

Now, what I'm wondering is what the focal length of the front element alone would be and what the aperture value would be. Let me see if I understand how to measure it - hold the lens in front of a white wall pointing at a window and move it back and forth until I have an image then measure that distance and that is the focal length? Then to get the f-stop I would divide this focal length by whatever the diameter of the element is?

[benrains]

Ian, maybe get your hands on one of the old early 1900s Kodak folding cameras, like the Kodak Hawkeye #2. Many of those came with meniscus lenses which should be about the right focal length and have the right coverage for a Century Graphic 23.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Aah, what a good idea, I never thought of that. If I remember correctly, these has a solid aperture fitted to make them something like f11 but if I removed that I would get a nice portrait meniscus. I like the brass and nickel pneumatic shutters, they look very nice, so I'll keep an eye out for one of those, cheers!

[Mark Sawyer]

...That's a very interesting idea about using the front element of a Tessar. I happen to have a Kodak Anastigmat 124mm lens from a 116 folder that is too soft for general use, it happens to be in a fully working Compur #00 with a non-standard real cell thread diameter so the whole thing I had put to one side as fairly useless, but it would be really simple to remove the rear cell and the second element of the front cell leaving just the front element, this appeals to me as it comes with a shutter.

The front and rear elements of a Tessar are both positives, but fairly weak and probably too long for your use. I was referring to keeping the system together, but moving the front element forward:

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/BandLTessar/11X14BandLTessar.html
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?57385-Velostigmat-Series-II-Info-and-Images

BTW, if you have an Ilex 4 or Copal 3 shutter around, the front and rear threads are 58mm, so a 58mm close up auxilliary lens screws right in. You can even stack a few or split them front and rear for a shorter focal length! If you get a couple sets of them, you'll have quite a casket set with working shutter and iris, and you can take the glass out of old 58mm filters for spacers. Tons of fun!


...Now, what I'm wondering is what the focal length of the front element alone would be and what the aperture value would be. Let me see if I understand how to measure it - hold the lens in front of a white wall pointing at a window and move it back and forth until I have an image then measure that distance and that is the focal length? Then to get the f-stop I would divide this focal length by whatever the diameter of the element is?

Yup! And if you do this on the camera after focusing, it compensates for the extended bellows!

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Cheers Mark, that's really good info.

I wish I had an Ilex #4 or Copal #3, I need one for my Ross WA Xpress f4 5inch!

I do, however, have a 40.5-58mm stepping ring which might screw into the front of the Copal #1 I have.

This sort of tinkering is right up my alley, I'll report back when I have something to report on.

[Jim Galli]

Either one of these would be superb. I make them up when I get lucky and find the necessary pieces.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?67483-Antique-4X5-Achromatic-Meniscus-Lens-in-modern-Copal-Shutter!

www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?100015-Antique-4X5-Soft-Focus-in-Shutter!-Achromatic-Meniscus-lens-130mm-f5-5

The one in the Copal is 105mm and the one in the older shutter is 130mm. Both f5.5

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Hi Jim, many thanks for chiming in, you're one of the guys that turned me on to these meniscus lenses.

Those achromatic doublets look very interesting. I wonder, would the rear cell of a Tessar do a similar job? I must have had a dozen cemented doublets in the box I threw out. :(

trell you what I do have sat right in front of me, the back cells from a Helios 44-2, which has a single element and a doublet, looks just about the right size to go into a #00 shutter too. I'll remove the doublet and have a play methinks.

[Jim Galli]

Hi Jim, many thanks for chiming in, you're one of the guys that turned me on to these meniscus lenses.

Those achromatic doublets look very interesting. I wonder, would the rear cell of a Tessar do a similar job? I must have had a dozen cemented doublets in the box I threw out. :(

trell you what I do have sat right in front of me, the back cells from a Helios 44-2, which has a single element and a doublet, looks just about the right size to go into a #00 shutter too. I'll remove the doublet and have a play methinks.

Never had much luck fiddling with tessars. Don't forget that the front element in any petzval is an achromatic meniscus just waiting to make soft focus images. Seem to work roughly in 3rds. So a 6" petzval front would be 9" meniscus.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Ooh, now that is interesting, I happen to have a 6 inch projector lens that is a Petzval, and a very fine one too, 1950s coated, made by Kershaw in Leeds, they were used in Gaumont-Kalee movie theatres to project 35mm movies. Cheers for that tip Jim, I'll whip the front element out tomorrow and bodge it onto a shutter.

[russyoung]

HI Ian,

I have a 2x3 Century as well, neat little package with a roll film back. It was great to back pack in the mountains of New Mexico with a lightweight tripod and two backs, one for colour, one for B&W. You'll enjoy it, for sure.

Two problems bedeviled me when trying to work soft focus with that camera:
1. the lens board is tiny compared to almost any manufactured soft focus lens. My memory may be wrong but I think the only thing I could find that fit the board and had an appropriate focal length was the Fujinon 180 SF. Even a 7 1/2 inch Verito was too large in diameter (not the lens per se but the flange). As memory serves, an 120mm Imagon in a shutter was too large - and according to Rodenstock literature, you'd need a 170mm to cover the format anyway.

2. during the high water mark of soft focus (1900-1912 IMHO), almost all negatives were contact printed. One advantage this gives is that the image on the ground glass has a high correspondence to the final print. Others may be better at this, but I have difficulty looking at a 4x5 ground glass and envisioning how this will appear at 8x10, a four times enlargement. A very slight highlight 'ring' of light becomes much larger in the print. To compensate, the negative needs a 'firmer' image than what seems right. If its correct on the 4x5 negative, it will be way too soft on an 8x10. The problem is proportionally worse with a 2x3 negative.

If you are attending the Royal Photographic Society weekend at Dunfermline in three weeks, we could get together and chat:
http://www.rps.org/region/Scotland/Dunfermline-Weekend-May-2013

YMMV.

Good luck and please post some results and your experiences.

Russ Young
FRPS

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Hi Russ

I would love to attend that weekend, I'm in Cumbria so Dunfermline is not too far. however, I'm not a member and I'm without a car at the moment, sadly. It would be great to chat, perhaps we will get another chance fairly soon

I took the cemented doublet out of the back cell of the Helios 44-2 and mounted it on a set of bellows on my NEW using blutak and electrical tape. It doesn't form an image so that's off the list.

I have a couple of box brownies, I could always remove the lens from one of those I suppose.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

I notice surplusshed have a ton of achromats, would something like this nice coated one be suitable?

http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/l3741.html

[Ian Greenhalgh]

I think I might have had a stroke of luck. I examined the construction of my Kodak Anastigmat 4.5/124. It's a tessar type from a 116 folder and not a very sharp lens for a tessar so probably a good candidate for a soft focus lens. I discovered that I can unscrew the front element by about 1.5 to 2mm which leaves the back three elements as they were and just increases the spacing between the front two elements. This should introduce spherical abberration if what I read is correct.

It's pouring with rain today so I probably won't get to try it out, but as soon as there's appropriate weather, I certainly will and hopefully have something worth posting afterwards.

[Mark Sawyer]

Don't forget that the front element in any petzval is an achromatic meniscus just waiting to make soft focus images...

Plano-convex, not meniscus! (Just splitting hairs...)

[Jim Galli]

Plano-convex, not meniscus! (Just splitting hairs...)

I know better than to argue with Mark. Thank you to the very helpful Diotriques web pages. If it looks like a duck, etc.


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/MisclMenisci/Petzval-LandscapeMeniscus.jpg

[goamules]

Oh yeah, let's start using french terms, that will make it easier! Rather than that or plano-convex, I like "flattie-roundie" better. It just seems...intuitive.

But all seriousness aside, Mark and I were talking about how some of the landscape "meniscus" designs had a more concave inner surface (the "French landscape design" I believe), and others ("english") are flat.

[Mark Sawyer]

If you're gonna talk "flattie-roundie", you also have to specify "innie-outtie". :)

The very first commercial photography lens by Chevalier (for the Giroux Daguerreotype cameras) was a plano-convex ("flattie-roundie-outtie") cemented doublet, which was actually just the front element of a telescope, (Chevalier was a telescope/microscope maker). Achromatic doublets of the same design were invented for telescopes in 1733 by Chester Moore Hall, and again in 1758 by John Dollond, and led to the "Age of Great Refractors/Era of Large Refractors" starting in 1820 and in full swing by 1839.

But Chevalier almost immediately switched to a cemented doublet meniscus ("roundie-roundie-innie-outtie"), probably influenced by Wollaston's single meniscus. And that was the French Landscape Lens, definitely the longest-running commercially produced design in photographic lenses. They were made continuously for LF from then until the Imagon ceased production in the 1990's, and are still made for smaller formats as some of the Lensbaby designs.

BTW, the only references to an "English Landscape Lens" I've run across referred to Thomas Grubb's Aplanat (a redesigned doublet meniscus, but with the crown and flint reversed, and not related to the later, more popular Aplanat/Rapid Rectilinear). But they should have called it the "Irish Landscape Lens, as Grubb was Irish...

I love being retired and reading all morning! :)

[Ian Greenhalgh]

That's fascinating info Mark, cheers.

I got to thinking when looking at all the elements available on surplusshed that one could have a lot of fun making some diy lenses, trying to replicate some of the old classics, which are pretty simple designs. I noticed they have lots of cemented triplets, many coated, made me wonder if a matching pair of those would make a dagor type lens. The only thing to get right would be the spacing of the cells, right?

Hmm, I sense a new thread coming on and possibly a surplusshed order, they have a UK distributor now and free shipping. :)

[Mark Sawyer]

Thank you, Ian! When you get into soft focus, it's a whole new world. Manufacturers of sharp lenses go to serious lengths trying to make the "perfect" lens with no aberrations anywhere. When you learn to appreciate those aberrations, you can do just horrible things with lens design, and whether by careful calculation, educated guess, or accident, sometimes find beautiful results.

[Tin Can]

do a search, for 'grinding camera lenses' and you will find some interesting pages

[Jim Galli]

Best quit talking about "innies" and "outies". Very political and religiously charged just now. If Ken Lee finds out, there'll be trouble. I possibly should not have mentioned ducks either.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Thank you, Ian! When you get into soft focus, it's a whole new world. Manufacturers of sharp lenses go to serious lengths trying to make the "perfect" lens with no aberrations anywhere. When you learn to appreciate those aberrations, you can do just horrible things with lens design, and whether by careful calculation, educated guess, or accident, sometimes find beautiful results.

Indeed, I've always been partial to some aberrations, for instance I like the swirly bokeh and glow on highlights that my Biotar 2/58 has when shot wide open due to the residual spherical aberration. Zeiss Jena improved the SA correction in Pancolar that replaced the Biotar and it does make for a sharper, contrastier and technically 'better' lens, but my Pancolar stays in the drawer more often than not and the good old Biotar with it's 'inferior' sharpness and contrast gets used far more often.

I made a couple of test shots with my modified Kodak Anastigmat 124mm today, hoping the increased spaced between the front elements has introduced lots of SA, but on the ground glass it still seemed sharp, so we shall see, maybe I need to increase the spacing even more, that will require making a spacer as it won't unscrew any further without falling off!

[Jim Galli]

Indeed, I've always been partial to some aberrations, for instance I like the swirly bokeh and glow on highlights that my Biotar 2/58 has when shot wide open due to the residual spherical aberration. Zeiss Jena improved the SA correction in Pancolar that replaced the Biotar and it does make for a sharper, contrastier and technically 'better' lens, but my Pancolar stays in the drawer more often than not and the good old Biotar with it's 'inferior' sharpness and contrast gets used far more often.

I made a couple of test shots with my modified Kodak Anastigmat 124mm today, hoping the increased spaced between the front elements has introduced lots of SA, but on the ground glass it still seemed sharp, so we shall see, maybe I need to increase the spacing even more, that will require making a spacer as it won't unscrew any further without falling off!

On the later design tessars, all the increased spacing seems to do is change the focal length. Indeed, many of these already have built in threads to do just that on the little folders. They were made to be sharp in any of the settings.

[Tin Can]

Adobe Photoshop 7 is threatening 'deblurring' is next.

Does anyone shoot their old portrait lenses to make a universal copy of the aberrations and apply it as a layer in post? I am not even sure how to do that...but I keep thinking about it.

[Mark Sawyer]

Best quit talking about "innies" and "outies". Very political and religiously charged just now. If Ken Lee finds out, there'll be trouble. I possibly should not have mentioned ducks either.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g139/Owen21k/io_zps9fec3907.jpg (http://s55.photobucket.com/user/Owen21k/media/io_zps9fec3907.jpg.html)