Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
Here are some crops round the eyes:
f/16 full sharp
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/...ps190df21e.jpg
f/16 full soft - Its still pretty sharp due to the small f-stop, but notice the fine wrinkles under my right eye are blurred. I need that.
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/...psb3f9adaf.jpg
f/3.5 full soft - This is too soft for me. I think the sweet spot must be around f/5.6 or 8 (more testing needed!)
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7137e379.jpg
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
Here is one more, showing on one sheet of 4x5 diffusion at 0, 6 turns, 12 turns and 18 turns.
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7a6eb852.jpg
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
I have a question, are you talking about a specific soft focus lens or any soft focus lens?
I wish if you can mention some lenses so i can see if i have one or go and buy one and then use it when i can and post here, I saw your examples, but i will try to shoot something nice and worthy to show here, so please if you can list those soft focus lenses rather than the one you mentioned above it may help me, as i have no idea much about those soft focus lenses and i thought it is just an effect you do with any lens.
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
A soft focus lens is intentionally soft, and most have adjustments from sharp to soft. Many were made in the early 20th century. Just google "soft focus lens" and you will find a lot of examples.
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
Nothing wrong with model!
Nice to escape hideous tattoos and worse!
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Professional
I have a question, are you talking about a specific soft focus lens or any soft focus lens?
I wish if you can mention some lenses so i can see if i have one or go and buy one and then use it when i can and post here, I saw your examples, but i will try to shoot something nice and worthy to show here, so please if you can list those soft focus lenses rather than the one you mentioned above it may help me, as i have no idea much about those soft focus lenses and i thought it is just an effect you do with any lens.
It's a big complicated genre of LF photography.
Check out the galli style thread and the soft focus lens sales thread for more examples and information. Also Russ Young's thesis on pictorial lenses.
For the photography, check out "After the Photo Secession" and "TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945"
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
I too thought Professional's suggestion was a good one. And I like Tim's response.
Added to this is some inspiration I found in Raphael Goldchain's work "I am my Family" in which he recreates his lost family photos using himself as model. Truly one doesn't need to come from Europe in the middle of the 20th century to have very few examples of family photos from generations past.
Here then is my mother's father.
He was a life insurance salesman after his return from being gased in Belgium in The Great War. He was a great athlete before the war, playing Lacrosse on Ottawa area teams; afterwards he raised homing pigeons in the roof of his garage and often won ribbons at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto.
Pinkham and Smith 16" at f5.6; Ilford FP4 plusAttachment 113793
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
Very nice ... thanks for sharing ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
cowanw
Re: Soft-Focus Lens Examples
Very nice Bill. Is this a lens that was commonly used in Hollywood? For some reason to me it evokes a distinctly Hollywood glow.
I had some fun recently doing a shoot-off between my new Chinese pictorial lens and my Universal Heliar. The Heliar won, of course (its my favorite lens), but it surprising what you can do on the outer fringes of soft-focus with a stopped down $2.00 magnifying glass.