For the Soft Focus Junkies only....

[Jim Galli]

I owe much to Mr. Louis Pacilla who was the lucky first caller on a 5X7 Flatbed outfit that had a Karl Struss Pictorial lens included on Craigs List!! The seller offered to pitch the Struss lens in the trash if Louis didn't want it. Oh my God!!

In any case Louis was a willing conspirator and graciously sold / traded the lens to me. No, I did not steal it from him. The price will be forgotten soon, the images made with the lens may be un-forgetable if I can get it right.

Anyways, HERE (http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/Harrahs121308/Harrahs_pg1.html) is a 3 page spread of first fruits for those of you who are following the ever unfolding story of the re-discovery! Comments are of course more than welcome. I learn much from you all.

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/Harrahs121308/Harrahs_pg1.html

[Charles Carstensen]

Jim, wonderful work. A lot of fun and it shows. Old cars are so fascinating to photograph. Hard to make a choice. The Pinkham wins most for me. Cooke is second. I love the higher contrast with the P&S. Incidentally, near my hometown is Gateway, Colorado where the Discovery Channel has a resort and an auto museum. I shot it up with my Leica M8, handheld, and loved every minute of it.

[eddie]

damn jim!you are the master! and i was just considering selling my cooke.....now i may keep her a bit longer.....

how do you keep rack on which lens is which when you go shooting? i always loose it some how....especially when i try different lenses and different f stops.

thanks

eddie

[Jim Galli]

damn jim!you are the master! and i was just considering selling my cooke.....now i may keep her a bit longer.....

how do you keep rack on which lens is which when you go shooting? i always loose it some how....especially when i try different lenses and different f stops.

thanks

eddie


Thanks Eddie, and Charles. Well, the Cooke is easy to tell, and as for the other 2 I had some concerns and that was one reason I didn't move the tripod back a few inches for the struss. I knew the struss would be a little tighter in every case. Now after studying both I could pick them out by their respective flare signatures.

[Bosaiya]

I have recently been wondering about soft lenses. I don't really know much about them, so this is probably in ignorance.

What is the difference between using a soft-effects lens and simply diffusing during enlarging (assuming you are enlarging)? Is there a variability in the soft lens as opposed to the all-over effect of enlarger diffusion?

Judging by the beautiful car photos I'm thinking there is a variability involved, the diffusion seems much more apparent in the out-of-focus areas, whereas the in-focus areas seem relatively sharp.

I've never really seen side-by-side comparisons before so I'm really grateful, if slightly confused.

Just for the record I did read the text which states that the best lenses have a sharp-within-soft effect, but I'm still wondering about that, and about what constitutes a good lens vs a mush lens.

How would a soft-effects lens compare to using diffusion material in front of, or behind, a regular lens? Is it more predictable, or what? Less mush on the dedicated lens? And yes, doing my own tests would be best, I would be happy to take any lenses anyone might have off of their hands to try!


Sorry for asking so many questions in your thread, Jim, but the beautiful photos having me begging for answers.

-B

[Steve M Hostetter]

Nice work Jim I love your work.. I've been a big fan of Karl Struss as well but I didn't know he had a lens named for him.. Interesting

[Glenn Thoreson]

Superb stuff, Jim! I have a 5X7 Speed Graphic and some screwy old lenses but I only have one 1930 Ford. It ain't fair, I tells ya. :D

[Jim Galli]

Superb stuff, Jim! I have a 5X7 Speed Graphic and some screwy old lenses but I only have one 1930 Ford. It ain't fair, I tells ya. :D

Glenn, I always figured a 1930 Ford was like a wife. I have enough trouble with one that I can't figure out why anyone would want two. :p

[Steve M Hostetter]

no struss though

[Jim Galli]

no struss though

Steve, the lens was designed by Karl Struss. He then had someone else manufacture them. I'd love to find more data about them. Drawings, specs, written details, a catalog would be wonderful.

[Diane Maher]

I enjoy reading the story of how you use the lenses and what you see that I probably wouldn't see. And how the lenses perform is also interesting to see.

[sun of sand]

Is that plastic wrap?

I read the Struss lens was an old projector lens that was modified
I figure the only modification -if that's what it even was- was sticking the iris up front

Which projectors had meniscus lenses?

[Jim Galli]

Some projectors have a usable achromatic meniscus at the front of the lens but I've never seen a simple meniscus in a projector. Where did you read that. Anxious to research almost anything written about these lenses. I have a 1921 Pictorial Annual with a half page ad in the back pages about the Struss lens. It was marketed by a Fred'k W. Keasby of Morristown NJ. It seems to be somewhat of an orphan. Struss design and oversight but I'm not sure what part if any he played after that. There are several pictures in this old book done with a Struss lens. One is by Laura Gilpin although no statement that a Struss was used and she may have had others.

As to using softness at the enlarging stage, it is done and there were examples in this 1921 book but usually they took a sharp 6X9 or 9X12 neg and then used a soft focus lens like a Verito at the enlarger. Anything done with screens etc just makes mush. In fact many of the pictures done by the pictorialist crowd 85 years ago are just that.

[Wimpler]

Jim I'll keep my eyes open when I browse through my books and catalogs and email any reference I might find.

[Jim Galli]

Frustratingly, it seems we build our knowledge base one puzzle piece at a time. Some could care less but I always enjoy knowing as much as possible about the different lenses I own and use.


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/SPL.jpg

Oh, how I hope that explanatory booklet shows up some time!

[Steve M Hostetter]

thx for responding Jim I was beginning to think i might be on some kind of ignore list

[Jon Shiu]

Nice work Jim. I have read a little about Struss and his lens. I bid on the old corroded one that went for $2300(!) or so on ebay. I have read about Struss in the book After the Photo-Secession. It mentions that the lens was popular among both still photographers and cinematographers in the 1910's. And that a 1917 ad "...claimed that the "Lens of Atmosphere" was now owned by over four hundred pictorialists."
Jon

[sun of sand]

I do not recall where I read about the projector lens being used
I didn't post before cause it didn't sound right and maybe the source didn't seem very credible to me

I'll try to find it again, though

any lenses with a meniscus at the back just needing other elements taken out?

[Jim Galli]

I do not recall where I read about the projector lens being used
I didn't post before cause it didn't sound right and maybe the source didn't seem very credible to me

I'll try to find it again, though

any lenses with a meniscus at the back just needing other elements taken out?

Most old projector lenses have a meniscus doublet at the front. J

[sun of sand]

Hey
Thought I'd give it a go here pretty quick ..Gotta go shovel about 10 inches of snow

This is NOT the same place I saw it
I remember it being more of a catalog entry with just a short description

But anyway, it says the same basic thing
60% down the page
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa206a.htm

It's a bio which may be good reading if never seen before, anyway

The writer in 2005 died at age 56
was curator for photo collections at amon carter so

[KOG]

Jim,

The Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas has Struss's archives.

Kevin

[Mark Sawyer]

I always love it when you post a series like this, Jim. A wonderful blend of beauty and optical education! I think I prefer the uniform glow of the P&S to the directional coma of the Struss, but each has its own charm. The Cooke has its place too, but it gets overwhelmed here by the show those two "bokeh-monsters" are putting on...

We keep looking for those "magic bullet" lenses, until one day we realize they're all magic...

[Ole Tjugen]

... As to using softness at the enlarging stage, it is done and there were examples in this 1921 book but usually they took a sharp 6X9 or 9X12 neg and then used a soft focus lens like a Verito at the enlarger. Anything done with screens etc just makes mush. ...

One example is the Voigtländer 180mm f:6.8 W.Z., a Periskop-type enlarger lens with lots of aberrations wide open which turne very sharp at smaller stops.

Apart from Periskops, the only lens I know of with a single meniscus behind the aperture is the Rodenstock Hemi-Anastigmat.

[Noeyedear]

I have recently been wondering about soft lenses. I don't really know much about them, so this is probably in ignorance.

What is the difference between using a soft-effects lens and simply diffusing during enlarging (assuming you are enlarging)? Is there a variability in the soft lens as opposed to the all-over effect of enlarger diffusion?


-B

Soft focus at taking spreads highlights into the dark areas, softening during enlarging has the opposite effect because you are softening a negative where dark areas are recorded as the light portions.

Kevin.

[Bosaiya]

Thanks, Kevin. I have been enjoying diffusing at the enlarging stage for some time after reading Lee Frost's book on fine art black and white photography. He's got a lot of great ideas in there! I was mostly wondering if there was some sort of control that was offered at the taking stage (dials and levers, that sort of thing) that gave a different effect than simply diffusing. Although looking at my post I was asking two questions in one and making a muddle of it. I should have asked if there was a difference between a soft focus lens and just putting diffusion in front of the lens, the answer having been made clear to me!

I guess what I really need is to develop my own soft-focus lens type system for the enlarging stage, unless that wheel has already been invented. I've got a few ideas I've been tinkering with using different diffusion materials.

[Noeyedear]

Thanks, Kevin. I have been enjoying diffusing at the enlarging stage for some time after reading Lee Frost's book on fine art black and white photography. He's got a lot of great ideas in there! I was mostly wondering if there was some sort of control that was offered at the taking stage (dials and levers, that sort of thing) that gave a different effect than simply diffusing. Although looking at my post I was asking two questions in one and making a muddle of it. I should have asked if there was a difference between a soft focus lens and just putting diffusion in front of the lens, the answer having been made clear to me!

I guess what I really need is to develop my own soft-focus lens type system for the enlarging stage, unless that wheel has already been invented. I've got a few ideas I've been tinkering with using different diffusion materials.

OK,
The Aperture often controls softness at the taking stage, I think the Imagon lens have different amounts of softness depending on the amount of holes used.
Another difference when taking I would imagine is you are softening a 3D image with differing amounts of sharpness within the image, I have never compared this to softening a neg, I feel sure it would make a difference to the end "Look"

Kevin.