Before You Spend a Gazillion Dollars on a SOFT Focus Lens, Check Your Cupboards . . .

. . . it may already be there. I was in the boring wash phase of a load of film and picked up the rear group of an older Sironar 210mm lens. Not too old, it came in a black Copal shutter that I needed for something else. The front group was junk and I think it made it into the trash can. Rear group had a serious ding in it also. So I unscrewed the retainer on the barrel and let the doublet fall out. Plasmat's (Symmar - Sironar) are a cemented doublet and a single meniscus in both front and rear barrels. So with the front doublet removed I had a 10" f9 single meniscus with no achromatic correction that has threads for a Copal 1 sized barrel or shutter. It covers 8X10 and it sharpens right up if you stop it down. Of course this wouldn't work with color films, and even correcting one color with a filter like orange would wipe out most of the softness.

Look at the images and decide for yourself. A soft focus lens that works with a shutter! And dirt cheap. Damaged Sironar's go for the value of the shutter. I did something similar with a Symmar too. That thread is around some place. Maybe those are in the 'galli style' thread, can't remember. These are all on 8X10.

Very close to what I actually see with glaucoma

and to think I was considering another ULF pinhole camera

The truth IS out there

Here are the ones from the modified Symmar 210. Same thing but front group this time. I think these are pretty legit. No, I'm not selling my Pinkhams, I'm also afflicted with the collector gene. Just saying, these have some potential.