PDA

View Full Version : Light soft focus lens in shutter-not fujinon or imagon



Tim Meisburger
29-Jan-2016, 03:34
I have several soft focus lenses, but none in shutter, and none light enough I would carry them around with my 4x5. I've read up on the fujinon and imagon, and neither seems like what I'm looking for. Any suggestions as to what I could or should be looking for?

richardman
29-Jan-2016, 04:47
Tim, I have 2 early 1900's Cooke converted to work with Copal 3 by SK Grimes. One is a 7.5 Series II with soft focus control (non-knuckler, you just unscrew the back elements out) and the other is a 8.5" Series IV without such control. I actually like the 7.5 at its "sharpest" setting, which is just a tad softer than the 8.5. The bokeh is extremely creamy on both lens. With the conversion, I only use the apertures on the lenses.

The lens themselves are tiny, smaller than the equivalent focal length Plasmat, but Copal 3 is large of course. The whole thing is still fairly small though. No worse than my 150mm Fuji/5.6 I would guess.

Since I have gotten a Cooke PS945, I am having the 7.5" converted to Hassy to be used on my 203FE. It's being done now so not sure how that will look.

Tim Meisburger
29-Jan-2016, 16:07
Thanks Richard. That sounds interesting. I'll keep my eyes out for a similar lens. (I have a Cooke knuckler, but there is no way I would ever walk around with it, as it weighs something like five kilos).

jp
29-Jan-2016, 16:51
Jim Galli sometimes sell something in a small shutter, or makes them on request.

BrianShaw
29-Jan-2016, 17:24
Ever consider soft focus filters?

Jim Galli
29-Jan-2016, 19:55
Jim Galli sometimes sell something in a small shutter, or makes them on request.

One of these (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?67483-Antique-4X5-Achromatic-Meniscus-Lens-in-modern-Copal-Shutter!&highlight=Search...antique+meniscus).

Tim Meisburger
30-Jan-2016, 01:51
Dan, That sure looks sweet, and I have a three I could screw it into, but unfortunately thats a little steep for me!

Brian, I have considered filters. I know I guy that used to do some pretty nice stuff wit a black stocking, and maybe I should give that a try, but seems more diffusion than soft (if that makes sense).

Jim, something like that might be good, but I would be more interested in the 150-210 range. Maybe a 180.

Dan Fromm
30-Jan-2016, 07:15
Dan, That sure looks sweet, and I have a three I could screw it into, but unfortunately thats a little steep for me!

"Send money," my song.

BrianShaw
30-Jan-2016, 07:21
Dan, That sure looks sweet, and I have a three I could screw it into, but unfortunately thats a little steep for me!

Brian, I have considered filters. I know I guy that used to do some pretty nice stuff wit a black stocking, and maybe I should give that a try, but seems more diffusion than soft (if that makes sense).

Jim, something like that might be good, but I would be more interested in the 150-210 range. Maybe a 180.

I know what you mean, and yes a "SF" filter is diffusion rather than softness. For LF ive used the Fujinon and been very happy with it. I like very small amounts of softness and can get that, or if desire is to go crazy with lots of softness can do that too. Mostly I just want to "break the edge". In 35 mm format I've wasted a lot of money on diffusion filters trying to find one I like. DUTO seems best to me for small levels of diffusion and a softfocus-ish look.

Peter De Smidt
30-Jan-2016, 10:38
Recently I looked at a bunch of soft focus filters. Like Brian, a Heliopan Duto was my favorite, but all of this depends heavily on format, enlargement size, lighting, subject....

Jim Galli
30-Jan-2016, 11:02
Another option is at the enlarging stage. I just started a new thread (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?128355-Going-SOFT-in-the-Enlarging-Stage-Soft-focus-from-sharp-negs&p=1305603#post1305603) for a discussion about that.

I was going to post here and thought it might have some wider value to discuss. Go have a peak at my example.

Bob Salomon
30-Jan-2016, 11:11
Recently I looked at a bunch of soft focus filters. Like Brian, a Heliopan Duto was my favorite, but all of this depends heavily on format, enlargement size, lighting, subject....

But a true soft focus lens, like an Imagon diffuses the shadows into the highlights. A soft focus or diffusion filter does exactly the opposite and diffuses shadows into the highlights. In addition, with soft focus or diffusion filters, except for a real Softar, the soft effect is pretty much lost when you get to the optimal aperture of your lens or when you are stopped down enough to hold focus through DOF from the tip of the nose to the base of the ear.
An Imagon is not a heavy lens. But the 3 size shutter is heavy.

pdh
30-Jan-2016, 11:17
a true soft focus lens ... diffuses the shadows into the highlights. A soft focus or diffusion filter does exactly the opposite and diffuses shadows into the highlights..

Um ... ?

BrianShaw
30-Jan-2016, 11:49
Bob's right about potential issues with many SF/diffusion filters when stopping down. One needs to pay attention to that. In addition to the Softar the Tiffen soft/FX is resistant to that concern. Interestingly, I like the Tiffen better than softar... Even thought I fear sounding like a heretic by admitting that. :eek:

Peter De Smidt
30-Jan-2016, 12:13
Brian, I do too, and Tiffen has a wider range of strengths than most. Getting the right "strength" for a given application is very important.

Bob Salomon
30-Jan-2016, 13:34
Modern soft focus filters use spherical aberration just like soft focus lenses do, are not much affected by aperture, and might be a lot cheaper and lighter than some old trash can worthy "meniscus" cobbled into a shutter. Very handy overall.

While they may or may not be corrected the lens they are added to is not corrected for soft focus. A true soft focus lens, properly used, will always be far superior.

Bob Salomon
30-Jan-2016, 15:38
Bob, I agree that a "true soft focus lens" such as an Imagon or Verito is superior in some (but not all) ways, but well designed soft focus filter are quite good and can be used with multiple focal length lenses to gives different degrees of diffusion and effect. I don't consider a homemade lens cobbled together from miscellaneous old lens parts to be a "true soft focus lens", and soft focus filters might be a very good alternative for someone looking for a lightweight and relatively inexpensive solution.

If they make you happy.

pdh
30-Jan-2016, 16:08
But a true soft focus lens... diffuses the shadows into the highlights. A soft focus or diffusion filter does exactly the opposite and diffuses shadows into the highlights. .

Sorry to repeat the quote, but I presume you must have made a typo here and consequently I don't understand what the difference is that you are trying to emphasise.

Bob Salomon
30-Jan-2016, 16:22
Sorry to repeat the quote, but I presume you must have made a typo here and consequently I don't understand what the difference is that you are trying to emphasise.

Soft focus lens diffuses highlights into shadows.
Diffusion or soft focus filter diffuses shadows into the highlights.

Sorry for any confusion.

Tim Meisburger
30-Jan-2016, 16:57
But if you print with a soft focus lens, then it diffuses shadows into the highlights, because it is making a positive rather than a negative.

djdister
30-Jan-2016, 17:04
Let's put it another way. Since a soft (diffused) focus lens diffuses light, when used for exposing film, the highlights will show the most bloom effect. When a soft focus lens is used for optical printing, the shadows will show the most bloom or diffusion effect.

Mark Sawyer
30-Jan-2016, 19:06
One can't diffuse or soft focus the shadows into the highlights in the camera. Diffusion is the random spreading of light; shadows aren't light, they're less significantly less light, and show the diffusion less because less light spread into a more light area is overwhelmed by the more light. This is what you get from "fog filters" and mesh over the lens. It can create a little glow, but it mostly kills the contrast.

True soft focus uses spherical aberration, which gives a halo of unfocused light around the focused highlights. Again, focused shadows are throwing less light on the film, so throwing less light on top of highlights doesn't affect them.

The Softar filters have little "lenslets" that change the focal length slightly to throw a slightly out-of-focus image, simulating spherical aberration. Duto filters do the same with little ridge in the glass. They're a better option than the diffusion filters or stockings, but still not quite the same as a true soft lens.

A final option that isn't used much anymore is to make a long exposure and shift the focus (move the front standard forward) during the last third or so of the exposure.

Using a soft lens during enlarging spreads the shadows, because the shadows in a negative are light. Light spreads to area around it. Absence of light (aka: dark) doesn't. Try opening the door to a dark room and see how much dark spills out...

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 12:39
Tim, I don't know if you are into this particular idea, but one of my cameras came with a lens I wasn't using, and one day I noticed that the back side of the shutter had threading that was just a hair over 49mm, I think it is. I took some plumber's teflon tape and wound a couple of turns around the threads a +3 49mm (I think) close-up lens, and came out with a 335mm f/6.8 soft focus meniscus lens, with the concave side properly facing forward. The inspiration for the whole idea was this group on flickr, which is all single-element lens photos: https://www.flickr.com/groups/monocle_lens/pool/ It's rather poorly moderated these days, but if you page down a bit you can find some really nice single-element photos, especially from the Russians.

Surely you have some lens/shutter you aren't getting enough use out of. :-)

I have thought of extending the idea to getting one of the fancy two-element close-up lenses--like a Marumi achromat---for around $100 to have a real cemented achromat soft focus lens, but since I bought a Verito and shoot only in the studio, I let that idea go.

For your 150-200mm range, that would be a +5 or +6 lens. . . that might be more difficult to find, but perhaps not impossible. I see Amazon has a few Marumi achromats at widely varying prices, but no small ones. Maybe a step-up ring, a extension tube to put the diaphragm a bit farther away in front where it really belongs for distortion correction. . . . . That could end up being a nice rig, and completely legit, in the historical sense. Basically a Verito without the front element, which is, according to Wollensak, one legitimate configuration of their lens. Someday I am going to hunt down the right optical pieces (the big very weak plus lens for the front looks to be the hard part) and badger Reinhold into fabricating the other bits I need to hold them together to make my own faux-Verito. . . .

By the way, I don't agree with the earlier poster who said a cobbled up rig wouldn't be "right". "Right" in what sense? That's exactly what the original Wollaston Landscape is: dead simple and historically correct. One just needs to decide at what point in photographic history one wants to be, and that doesn't need to be 1930 to be officially correct. Every SF alternative has a different "look" and there's no rule that says you have to pick only one of them or be wrong.

plaubel
31-Jan-2016, 14:27
I don't consider a homemade lens cobbled together from miscellaneous old lens parts to be a "true soft focus lens",

In germany we may use two terms of different meanings:
A meniscus lens is a "Weichzeichner", which means, that he lives from his not corrected mistakes .
The Weichzeichner is soft, too, but first he is a real Weichzeichner.
Including everything, Mark has said before,chromatical and spherical abberations, plus, and that is important, plus a deeper field of sharpness because of the different focus points. Focal planes.

A soft focus lens may be a Weichzeichner or a kind of Weichzeichner, but often it is a corrected, a mild Weichzeichner.

Rodenstock doesn't make more than adding a second lens to the meniscus (Weichzeichner) for mild up the Weichzeichnung. The abberations.
But the deeper field of sharpness from the Weichzeichner is always there, and that is the secret of the Imagon.
Rodenstock first didn't call their Imagon a Weichzeichner/soft focus; they called it "Tiefenbildner", which means it gives dramatically more depth of sharpness wide open than corrected lenses.
Like a meniscus will do.

I understand the meniscus, and why not Jims well tested shutter versions, as the best solution concerning the TO's question about light weight.
Add the best possibilty to get a real Weichzeichnung and a truely soft focusing lens.

I consider a homemade lens cobbled together from miscellaneous old lens parts to be an exciting, a cheep, and a true solution of finding a good Weichzeichner.

There exist ancient books which describe how to do with this meniscus lenses, and since when this is done ( 18something).
I name again Michael Neumüller's "practice of Weichzeichnung".
Not big, but full of information around the Weichzeichner, soft focus, Dutos and others.
Especially Rodenstock's Imagon.

Ritchie

John Kasaian
31-Jan-2016, 15:44
How soft do you want to go? A 162mm f4.5 Wollensak Velostigmat, shot wide open may be worth looking at, and it won't break the bank.

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 16:24
Indeed. I rarely shoot my 215/4.5 Paragon wide open, but did the other day and got a rude reminder of why not. But I don't think it was the wider depth of focus Weichzeichner type of experience noted above. More like just fuzzy. :-) Isn't that also the problem with those SF Velos and Heliars with the floating elements---they don't make them into Weichzeichners--they just make them impossible to focus on anything at all? Kind of like my SF Fujinon, a lens that I keep repeating was such a major disappointment that no one here will ever want to buy it except for the shutter, if I repeat myself enough about it. :-)

Bob Salomon
31-Jan-2016, 16:54
Indeed. I rarely shoot my 215/4.5 Paragon wide open, but did the other day and got a rude reminder of why not. But I don't think it was the wider depth of focus Weichzeichner type of experience noted above. More like just fuzzy. :-) Isn't that also the problem with those SF Velos and Heliars with the floating elements---they don't make them into Weichzeichners--they just make them impossible to focus on anything at all? Kind of like my SF Fujinon, a lens that I keep repeating was such a major disappointment that no one here will ever want to buy it except for the shutter, if I repeat myself enough about it. :-)

What kind of lighting and lighting ratio do you use with the Fuji?

Tim Meisburger
31-Jan-2016, 17:04
Michael, my thoughts exactly. I have a Copal three with a 250 in it that I rarely use, so a could of days ago I ordered a super cheap 58mm close-up lens to pop in there and see what I get. If it seems positive I'll look around for a cheap shutter and spring for an appropriate achromat in the 150mm range. I have shot with a simple magnifying glass, but seldom use it because I don't carry it around.

Ritchie, I wish I could read German, as that sounds like an interesting book. I'll have to wait for the English translation...

John, I would have to use the Velostigmat, I guess, to get a sense of if its enough. I am considering just buying a Velostigmat or Verito with soft focus adjustment if I can find a small one. Not sure if there is any difference between the Velostigmat and Verito?

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 17:16
The Verito is a real SF lens, designed to work that way, with the extended DOF and all the pleasant oddness that SF lenses give. Stop it down a bit and that gradually goes away---the white halo highlights, the funny buzzy sort of multiply-focused sub-images that a wide open SF lens gives all turn into just a lens that's a bit soft, like the Velo used wide open, and then stop it down farther to f/11 and it's mostly just a normal lens. All of the tricky stuff happens in the first two stops, which is why some SF lenses have 1/6-stop or so dots between f/4 and f/8, so you can remember where the exact effect you liked lives. The normal Velo is just an uncoated Tessar that ain't that great wide open and then gets better. Totally different effects.

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 17:23
What kind of lighting and lighting ratio do you use with the Fuji?

Studio flash and available, high and low ratio. I understand that there may be two versions of the Fuji, one better than the other. I haven't explored the technology of mine very extensively, but it's not constructed at all like a Verito--the back is quite thick glass, and either very short FL, or maybe even negative, I don't remember which, not a long positive like the back of a Verito (I was hoping I could take off the front and just use the back, but that was clearly not possible) or the totality of an Imagon, which is all back, anyway. :-) It's a completely different idea.

Bob Salomon
31-Jan-2016, 17:41
Studio flash and available, high and low ratio. I understand that there may be two versions of the Fuji, one better than the other. I haven't explored the technology of mine very extensively, but it's not constructed at all like a Verito--the back is quite thick glass, and either very short FL, or maybe even negative, I don't remember which, not a long positive like the back of a Verito (I was hoping I could take off the front and just use the back, but that was clearly not possible) or the totality of an Imagon, which is all back, anyway. :-) It's a completely different idea.

Are you using umbrellas, soft boxes or ellipticals or something else. You should be at a 5 to 1 ratio with hard lighting, not soft lighting.

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 17:56
Small umbrellas, 2x3 soft box, small windows. Thanks, I will try that, but I will simply observe that my Verito doesn't ask for anything special in that regard, and always does a nice job with whatever I throw at it. The Fuji SF does not. Since one is 11-1/2" and the other 10", you can imagine that the choice rides entirely on results, not FL, and the Fuji isn't getting much love.

Bob Salomon
31-Jan-2016, 17:59
Small umbrellas, 2x3 soft box, small windows. Thanks, I will try that, but I will simply observe that my Verito doesn't ask for anything special in that regard, and always does a nice job with whatever I throw at it. The Fuji SF does not.

While Fuji was the competition, since I was Rodenstock, it still should behave somewhat like the Imagon and that means a strong, hard lighting. It is that strong highlight lighting that creates the blooming effect. With the Imagon, used for classic portraits, it was the second disk, wide open at 7.7 that created the portraits that Monte Zucker, Tibor Horvath, Al Gilbert, etc. did.

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 18:08
Maybe, but as I said, it isn't built at all like an Imagon. The results remind me a bit of a photo I have of my mother from 1938 where everything is neither sharp nor not and there's not a bit of highlight bloom. Since the village portrait photographer's objective was to smooth textures to avoid retouching and harshness (and that's done to perfection in the photo of my mom) not create the weird effects we now like to see, in that context the fuzzy Fuji is a success, the same as the fuzzy Velos and Tessars with mis-spaced elements. But as I said, I don't have to force the Verito to make it weird: it lives that way.

Below, both shot at f/5.6, or close.
Verito, 2x3 soft box, reflector fill, hair light; click through to something bigger and check out the necklace and hair highlights:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5791/21514343135_832e006b91_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/yM9CEB)

Annie (https://flic.kr/p/yM9CEB)
by Michael Darnton (https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaeldarnton/), on Flickr


Fuji SF, bare bulb main, window fill from same side (or maybe the other way around, depending on how you see it); don't bother to click through--there's nothing to see:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7648/16945855792_7966c1e409_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/rPrWxs)

Dan K (https://flic.kr/p/rPrWxs)
by Michael Darnton (https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaeldarnton/), on Flickr


My favorite cheap SF that I would recommend to Tim, but that it's too large and too heavy, and that's the front half, only, of a 15" Raptar tele (a basic two-element achromat, that front part) moved around to the back of the shutter, making about a 9" lens, shot at about f/6.3, hazy day light. Again, no special treatment needed to make this one sing:

The Estimable Brother Randy Moe, for those who don't already know him:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8705/17146398051_99f86f7e04_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/s8aLLB)

Randy M (https://flic.kr/p/s8aLLB)
by Michael Darnton (https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaeldarnton/), on Flickr

Tim Meisburger
31-Jan-2016, 18:25
I have a tele-Xenar. Maybe I'll give that a try!

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 18:28
Try just pulling the back off, first. The only reason to move the front to the back is for a slight amount of barrel distortion correction and to make it look more like a faux-Kodak Portrait Lens. :-) Also, that way my Graflex Crown view will fold up to nothing, with all of the glass inside, and a pinch cap in the outside hole. I doubt the holes in the front and back of your Xenar's shutter are the same size, as the Wolly's are, anyway. But if it works as a SF lens at all, in any configuration, that would be cool, wouldn't it!

The Wolly tele's diagram is on page 52, here: http://cameraeccentric.com/html/info/wollensak_14.html I can't find a good tele-Xenar diagram, but I think it's not as straightforward, unfortunately.

Keith Fleming
31-Jan-2016, 19:44
I have an Alphax shutter which has a diameter of 45 mm. S. K. Grimes made me an adapter so the shutter will take 52 mm filters. An old 52 mm Nikon F close-up filter--an achromat--screwed into the back of the shutter with the adapter gives me a soft-focus lens. Stopping down the aperture provides variable sharpness--and it appears quite sharp at small apertures. Different sizes of Nikon close-up filters give different focal lengths. I'm working on a table of equivalent f-stops for each size close-up filter. However, I have yet to actually use the set-up for making photographs.

The same shutter normally houses a 29 cm and a 35 cm Protar VII lenses. So multiple uses for the same shutter.

One caution on my set-up. I have a second Alphax of the same size that originally mounted one of the wretched Occillo-Raptars f1.9 lenses. That shutter was factory adapted to prevent the aperture from fully opening. That reduced maximum aperture reduces the amount of softness obtainable with a Nikon close-up filter. I am considering sending the shutter to Flutot's Camera Repair to see if it can be restored to maximum aperture.

Keith

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 20:20
Keith, on the Alpax shutters for 90/12.5 wide angles the aperture is limited by simply cutting a little tab out of something in front near the selection needle on the inside, and bending it into interference so the needle won't move open past 12.5. The lens is really a crippled 90/6.8 and you can turn 12.5 into 6.8 by removing the shutter face (two screws) and bending this little tab out of the way. I had read this, and was a bit scared, but it turned out to be very obvious what to do with the face of the shutter off, and very easy to bend back out of the way. These shutters are so simple inside that there's not too much you can do to mess them up if you don't touch what you don't need to touch.

I don't know how brave you are, but if it were me, I'd take a look-see.

mdarnton
31-Jan-2016, 20:23
TAG, yes, that is certainly your personal interpretation of what you would like the words to mean. No one disputes that. I bet you won't swat a fly with a newspaper, either--only a device that's been originally designed and sold as a fly swatter will work, right? :-P

plaubel
1-Feb-2016, 00:40
Ritchie, I wish I could read German, as that sounds like an interesting book. I'll have to wait for the English translation...



I don't know, if there excist an english version.
This gives me the idea to bring some important informations of this book into this forum, maybe with a special thread.
I would need some help in translating, too :-)

Ritchie

Tim Meisburger
1-Feb-2016, 01:24
That sounds like a great idea!

plaubel
1-Feb-2016, 01:32
I will do, but this may need 2 weeks because I need one or two ours to write even one not so bad english text :-)
There are some explaining pictures/illustrations in this book, so it may be a good idea to buy one of this german versions..
I am not willing and of course not allowed to copy the pics.

Ritchie

Tim Meisburger
1-Feb-2016, 01:52
Thanks Ritchie. I just ordered a copy.

Best, Tim

Tim Meisburger
1-Feb-2016, 01:57
So, back on topic. I think in the near term I will experiment a bit with a close-up monocle lens behind a shutter, then save up my pennies for a smaller Verito, which seems to be the only practical option for 4x5 in shutter (leaving out the Imagon and Fujinon).