Smooth skin and good overall contrast

[SadChi]

Hello,

Could you advise me one lens for 4x5 and one for 8x10 for portrait work which can give me smooth skin (hide skin texture) and good overal contrast?

Many thanks.

[8x10 user]

Sounds like your looking for a soft focus lens.

[vinny]

don't rule out filtration and nets. Soft fx and black promist filters can work wonders.

[John Kasaian]

A 14" Commercial Ektar for 8x10. Niiiiiiice! :)

[SadChi]

Thanks!

Any other suggestions?

[Archphoto]

My very personal choise would be the Rodenstock Imagon variable soft focus lens.
The 250mm for 4x5" , the 300mm for 8x10".
Not cheap though.

I have the 250mm for 4x5 and love it, the lady's too.

Peter

[Peter K]

My very personal choise would be the Rodenstock Imagon variable soft focus lens.
The 250mm for 4x5" , the 300mm for 8x10".
Rodenstock recommends the 300mm for 5x7", I've used it for 4x5". And my 360mm is a little bit short for 8x10". But a 420mm, as recommended by Rodenstock for 8x10", is hard to find.

[lenser]

I love my 10 inch Wollensak Veritar for 4x5 and 5x7. But if you don't have access or budget for a true soft focus or portrait lens, some of the old tricks are: one or more layers of black nylon netting between two uv filters, multiple dots of model airplane cement on a UV filter, or swirls or crossing lines of cement on the same, or even a VERY light smear of vaseline on a UV filter. Never do any of these directly on the lens.

You can control the degree of softness by burning a few small holes in the netting so that you have overlapping layers of sharp image with the slightly softened image created by the netting. One layer is very slight softening, two a bit more and three is about as much as you might want.

The patterns of glue work the same way. Many dots would be like a lot of tiny lens elements defocussing the image over the sharp image passed through the plane filter areas. Fewer dots or lines would mean slightly less softness.

All of these solutions place opportunities for a lot of flare out in front of your lens, so very careful shading of the lens or controlling the placement of the lights is very important.

Have fun.

Tim

[Frank Petronio]

You can also take a completely different approach and use a modern sharp and contrasty lens and a hard light, which sound like the opposite of what you think you need.... But blast the skin with hard direct light so it almost burns out and then control the contrast in printing (either analog or digital).

You don't always want soft and glowy, sometimes you just don't want to see the skin texture.

[SadChi]

You can also take a completely different approach and use a modern sharp and contrasty lens and a hard light, which sound like the opposite of what you think you need.... But blast the skin with hard direct light so it almost burns out and then control the contrast in printing (either analog or digital).

You don't always want soft and glowy, sometimes you just don't want to see the skin texture.

Thanks, Frank. I like your aproach.

Tim, thanks also.

I'll try both methods.

[John Kasaian]

162mm Wollensak Velostigmat on 4x5

[lenser]

You are welcome, Sad. I forgot to mention that with the netting, you will lose light as you add layers, Two layers need about 1/2 stop more exposure and three will need nearly a full stop. Exposure tests should be done to be sure of you results before shooting anything important. Use black netting for mid tone to dark backgrounds and white netting if yu are shooting high key white backgrounds, otherwise, dark netting will actually show up as a pattern against a white field.

No exposure adjustment is needed for the other methods.