Alternative to buying Soft Focus Lens

[lilmsmaggie]

I've heard that rather than purchasing expensive soft focus lenses, you could smear a clear filter with say vaseline, then attach the filter to the camera lens. Another option I've heard of is to stretch a piece of a woman's nylon stocking (or panyhose) over the lens.

Has anyone out there tried any of these techniques, where you satisfied/dissatisfied with the results?

[Mark Sawyer]

The options you mention work diffusion, ie, fuzzing up the image. It definitely softens things, but it isn't the same effect, and it kills a lot of the contrast. "Real" soft focus lenses have the softness built into the lens, usually through spherical aberration. A good alternative to expensive soft focus lenses is inexpensive soft focus lenses:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=35097
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=35482

[johnielvis]

every old photographer I ever met says "nose grease"

Zeiss made some softars for the hasselblad--I got some when i bought the proshade--but they seemed to be good enough to provide diffusion for the super pros in the days of hasselblad film domination--you really do need something to tame the contrast on them hassel lenses.

I'm of the opinion that the modern lens with softar/nose grease is superior because of less flare due to modern coating---

ALSO--there's a different kind of trick--shoot it SHARP---no diffusion--THEN--you enlarge with one of them diffusion filters---it's a slight differernt look--it diffuses the shadows rather than the highlights, so it provides more contrast there somehow---AND..if you wanna make it with a sharp background, you expose it sharp, and double expose the diffusion filter---AND you have a sharp negative to fuzz up if you want---or you can scan and photoshop diffuse..

to each his own, however, i know there's gonna be hell to pay for opinions on this, particularly since I don't use soft focus lenses!!!!

[Steven Tribe]

Pantyhose only works on stereo lenses.
Seriously, simple achromats do wonders.

[Adamphotoman]

The Imagon used a simple element similar to a close up lens and adjustable disks to control softness and exposure. My first attempt at making one was using a Polaroid MP-4 Self Cocking Shutter and a spare barrel from a el lens that I had mounted into a compur shutter. I drilled holes into a plastic lens cap and the rig functioned albeit rather clumsily.

Next I was given a damaged [Cooked] Bis Telar 360mm. The front element was trashed so I tried it with just the rear element. This shortened the focal length to about 100mm but produced a stunning soft picture.
This was produced with a Betterlight Scan back so the file is over 800mg.

So try shooting with a lens with only one lens group. Worth a try.
Grant

[BrianShaw]

I tired of (meaning, became dissatisfied with) "makeshift" approaches several years ago and got a Fujinon SF and couldn't be happier. For smaller formats I've been quite satisfied with Softar or the Tiffen equivalent.

[Adamphotoman]

I also use a 200 mm Imagon and a CookeP645.
I was dissatisfied with the makeshift approach, however I don't consider the Bis Telar makeshift. Just a happy accident.
Grant Kernan AKA Adamphotoman

[Leonard Evens]

A soft focus lens is designed to have more spherical aberration than would be tolerated in a normal lens. Normally, a lens is designed so that all the rays from a given subject point come together as closely as possible at a single point in the image plane. This is impossible with a single simple lens, the surfaces of which lie on different spherical surfaces, so the effect is called spherical aberration. Normal sharp lenses combine different simple lenses, which together correct almost all the spherical aberration.

I doubt if anything you can do easily with a normal sharp lens can mimic that effect. The effect is different from just being slightly out of focus. It is conceivable that using an additional supplementary lens could yield the right kind of spherical aberration.

[Jim Noel]

During my more than 70 years in photography I have tried every means I have heard of to get a nice soft focus effect from nose grease to an Imagon. I was never satisfied until I began using a variety of 19th century soft focus lenses.

[Adamphotoman]

The original post :"Alternative to buying Soft Focus Lens"
leads me to offer suggestions...alternatives

Sorry I made a typo. The Cooke PS945 not 645, is a soft focus lens. It is a recreation of a Pinkham & Smith Series1V 9 inch f4.5...
But at $3500-$4000 it does not qualify as a cheap lens.

If I am reading right there is no alternative to buying a soft focus lens.

Extra lens groups are engineered to correct for aberrations. Some lenses were made as convertibles. Some better than others. I only tried the Bis Telar without the front element because I had an opportunity to do so. I suggest that there is a considerable amount of spherical and chromatic aberration in this lens because the rear element isn't being corrected by the missing front element.