Best practices for soft focus lenses?

[DDrake]

A few months ago, I purchased a Kodak Century No. 7 studio camera at an estate sale, along with a Thomas Hobson Cooke Series II 15" f/4.5 knuckler, Pinkham Bi-Quality 14" f/4.5, Taylor Taylor Hobson Series II 13" f/4.5, and Kodak Portrait Lens 305mm (12'') f/4.8. All have flaws: while the glass on the Pinkham 14", the TTH 13", and the Kodak 12" cleaned up and is basically perfect, the THC 15" has a 2mm chip on the front element and a badly dented filter ring. The Pinkham also has a dent in the filter ring, and the No. 5 shutter the Kodak is shot (iris works fine).

Eventually I may sell some or all of these, but I'd like to figure out what kind of images I'm capable of making with them first. I've been working my way through a box of Ilford FP4+, and will order some 8x10 as well, but hope to get some advice on best practice to get the most out of these while I have them.

I've attached sample test images below in ascending order: Kodak 12" (still life w/ bottle & alliums), TTH 13" (still life w/ bottles, cabbage & stone), Pinkham 14" (still life w/ bottles, petrified wood, salt shaker), and THC 15" (still life w/ alliums & portrait). All shot between f/8-f/22, 30—1/2 sec, FP4+ developed in Xtol 1+1 and scanned.

Composition and content aside, are there techniques I can use to take better advantages of these lenses and explore their unique characteristics? Different combinations of aperture and lighting conditions? Are there particular film stocks/developers that are well-suited to them?

Thanks in advance.

[seven]

shooting those lenses at f/8 and more is killing the soft focus effect and their character. you could shoot any other lens and the result would be very similar.
shoot them wide open or at +1 stop max. play with lightning conditions, reflectors, background etc.

[Louis Pacilla]

shooting those lenses at f/8 and more is killing the soft focus effect and their character. you could shoot any other lens and the result would be very similar.
shoot them wide open or at +1 stop max. play with lightning conditions, reflectors, background etc.

Agreed!

[paulbarden]

What these guys said - stopping down any more than ONE stop and you are removing the best traits the lens has to offer.

[xkaes]

The only time you should stop down is to focus, or increase DOF.

[Vaidotas]

Here is similar thread:
https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?3716-How-to-focus-a-soft-focus-lens

All what was said above relates to soft focus lens focussing.
Specific lighting conditions are beneficial too.
Portraiture of Hollywood celebrities from BW film golden era has tons of good examples.
Emil Schildt started outstanding thread:
https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?126648-Lenses-and-their-quot-personality-quot

Another beautifull thread:
https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?172146-Re-assessing-my-(un)sharpest-lenses&highlight=Cowanw
To me closing for few stops didn’t eliminate soft focus lens signature, but there already field of personal preferences.
Verito at f/11 is still Verito.

[jp]

Above mentioned suggestions are good.
I'd suggest studying the work of the pictorialists such as

Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895–1925

Camera Work (by Stieglitz)

After the Photo-Secession: American Pictorial Photography

Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian

photos from any of the pictorialist photographers.


I like side-lit or slightly back-lit soft focus photos. Also expand the variety of subjects you photograph. (probably harder to do with that studio stand), but cars, planes, bikes, nature, outdoors offer much for soft focus subject matter. Gertrude Käsebier did a few backlit pictorialist photos of note. White and Day did a lot with dappled light. Curtis did pictorialism for a while, then quickly changed gears to modern styles part way through his major project. In any case, use all your film, then use some more, and don't stop down past f8.

[DDrake]

Thanks everyone for the responses. Shooting wide open or close to it seems obvious now that I hear from you all.

About subject variety and portability: I have two smaller cameras (including Kodak Master View and a Noba 5x7) that I could make lens boards for and at least get the three smaller lenses out of the house.

[Tin Can]

Yes to NOBA!

I never saw one in action

I tried hard to find one with the unique stand

[erian]

Nice collection you got. I have used Pinkham Visual Quality and Gundlach Hyperion. With these you how two options to vary the apparent softness: aperture, point of focus. Aperture is clear - the more wide the lens is, the softer it gets, but you can also play around with the focus - if there is enough dof then both ends of the dof are different than the middle of it - so you can move in and out of focus a little and check on the ground glass how much sharpness you want to compromise for the softness (the image will still appear in focus when you stay within the limits).

[peter brooks]

Your 'Thomas Hobson Cooke Series II 15" f/4.5 knuckler' will be a 'Taylor Hobson Cooke Series II 15" f/4.5 knuckler'.

Taylor, Taylor & Hobson (TTH) licensed the triplet design from T Cooke and Sons of York, but there was never a company called 'Cooke' producing them. The modern day Cooke Optics website (Cooke Optics Ltd was incorprated in 1998) tends to give the impression that there was. That website used to have a fine section on the history of the varous TTH lenses, but it has now sadly disappeared. Of course TTH marketed the Cooke brand vigorously, and it became a household name and a byword for excellence (as it still is, no doubt).

Both of your Series II lens are likely to be fairly mild in terms of softness, even on the maximum 'soft' setting. I have heard that the knucklers are slightly softer but I don't have one to compare. I think they were intended to soften portraiture rather than give a pictorialism style 'arty' softness in the way that other soft focus lenses do.

Great collection of lenses. If you take the advice to shoot them at no more than +1 stop max then I would focus them at the taking aperture, they should be bright enough, and you might stand more chance of WYSIWYG (or maybe not!)

Lastly you probably know this already but the Kodak badged Ilex #5 used for the 305mm Ektar has different threads to the standard Ilex #5. Getting the shutter you have repaired might be the best bet, the Kodak badged ons will be like hen's teeth.

[peter brooks]

(The 'Compendium' is still on the Cooke Optics website at https://cookeoptics.com/compendium/ but is a shadow of it's former self - it used to have images from the old catalogues, and a far more readable format, especially the serial number examples at the bottom of each section).

BTW do your TTH Series II serial numbers appear in Karl French's spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zan_PR-3rcPkejlblOhAjLPdZQ_saO3HLEG2a-dmsKc/edit?usp=sharing)? I don't know if Karl is still active on the list.

[djdister]

Getting back to part of the original question, try to include specular highlights or even light sources in your soft focus shots - that is another place the soft focus effect really shines :)

[Jim Andrada]

+1 to highlights - chrome can be really interesting.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

All the suggestions for lighting and not stopping down the lenses more than a stop or stop and a half are what I'd recommend as well. Study the works of those that were suggested and have fun. Shoot the slowest film you can and by all means have fun. Each lens will have a sweet spot. Find it and never change the F-stop and you are golden. These two images are shot with half a Hermagis Endoscope 150mm F4.5 rear mounted in a Compeer shutter 1/2 stop past wide open at about F10. Both are 8x10 contact prints.

[Scott Davis]

Don't worry about the physical condition of your Cooke lenses - they had some wizards in their glass foundry and produced some of the best glass ever. I have a 10.5" Cooke Series II f4.5 that looks like it spent decades as a dog's chew toy - all the bright brass has been worn down, the blacking on the aperture ring is gone, and both front and rear elements have scratches in them you can catch a fingernail on. I gave it a torture test when I first got it - photographed at night, in the rain, with neon lights in the frame, shot wide open. If I didn't tell you about the issues with the lens, you'd NEVER know. No flare, no distortion, no ghost lines, nothing.

[Kiwi7475]

All the suggestions for lighting and not stopping down the lenses more than a stop or stop and a half are what I'd recommend as well. Study the works of those that were suggested and have fun. Shoot the slowest film you can and by all means have fun. Each lens will have a sweet spot. Find it and never change the F-stop and you are golden. These two images are shot with half a Hermagis Endoscope 150mm F4.5 rear mounted in a Compeer shutter 1/2 stop past wide open at about F10. Both are 8x10 contact prints.

These are really great. Does the endoscope 150mm really cover 8x10? Or are you digitally printing the negative to 8x10 from a smaller size to contact print?

[Mark Sawyer]

Beating Jim to the reply, he posted "These two images are shot with half a Hermagis Endoscope 150mm F4.5". That would be about 300mm and f/9. Many lenses are convertibles.

[Kiwi7475]

Beating Jim to the reply, he posted "These two images are shot with half a Hermagis Endoscope 150mm F4.5". That would be about 300mm and f/9. Many lenses are convertibles.

Got it— I missed the “half”, that makes sense now. Thank you!

[Mark Sawyer]

Got it— I missed the “half”, that makes sense now. Thank you!

That got me at first too. And I didn't even know Hermagis made an endoscope...