A Home Built Soft Focus Protar VII

[Jim Galli]

I modified a Protar VII lens into a soft focus lens this weekend.

This is not necessarily a cheap solution for soft focus because the Protar VII lens is valuable in the first place. Another problem is that only the longest focal length Protar VII's are viable candidates. The one I converted was a 23 1/8" version and converted it is just 8" f4 focal length and covers only 5X7 and 4X5.

Photographs made with the lens are here; (http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/ProtarSoft/ProtarSoft.html)

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/ProtarSoft/ProtarSoft.html

Your comments are of course always welcome.

[rippo]

looks good, jim! it will definitely be a useful modification.

it's a slippery slope though...soon you'll give up all these pre-fab brass lenses, and start making your own from scratch. ;)

which reminds me i need to use my homemade portrait lens more. so little time.

[Darren Kruger]

the images look good. You mentioned on that page you re-cemented the doublet back together. What type of cement did you use? do you have a jig or something to align the elements?

-Darren

[Jim Galli]

I use the UV cure glass cement. With a simple 2 glass I just use masking tape to hold everything in register.