Soft Focus ~ Comparing Various Approches

Years ago I shot large format film (4x5inch up to 12x20inch) and I followed Jim Galli's soft focus lens journey. The way he talked about his deep lens mine still cracks me up.  His images from various soft focus lenses piqued my interest and his work became something of an inspiration for me in my own on-again/off-again soft focus lens explorations.

Jim had a wonderfully quirky website which dropped offline for me here in Europe.  Perhaps it's still reachable from the US?  Additionally, I see Jim is no longer part of the Large Format Forum.  I'm not sure what happened.  He'd been on that site for years.

A quick search reminded me that the Way Back Machine archives websites.  Sure enough, they've archived a copy of Jim Galli's site from late 2019.  I'm thrilled.  Now I can go back and look at his work for ideas and understanding of how classic soft focus lenses can function.

Up to this point in my Soft Focus Adventures I have looked at filtration, optically induced softness, and nose oil finger "gunking" a lens or filter.  What I would like to do now is to compare these three approaches side by side by choosing images that I feel best represent the soft focus effect.

Following with a previous format, I would like to first review available optics as I currently understand the market.  Specifically I would like to present a list of 35mm SLR small format soft focus lenses.

35mm format glass optics

• Canon FDn 85mm /f2.8 six elements/four groups
• Fuji M42 85mm f/4 - four elements/four groups 
  
• Kenko 
• MC 45mm f/4.5 - two elements/one group meniscus 
• MC 85mm f/2.8 - three elements/three groups
  
• Lensbaby 
• Velvet lens series - 28mm, 56mm, 85mm
• Minolta 85mm Varisoft f/2.8 - six elements/five groups 
• Pentax 
• K-mount 85mm f/2.2 - two elements/one group meniscus
• SMC F/FA 85/2.8 Soft - five elements/four groups
  
• Sima 100mm f/2 Soft Focus - single element(?), no aperture control 
• Sony A-mount AF 100 F2.8 Soft - eight elements/eight groups
  
• Tamron T-mount 70-150 f/2.8 SF type 51A - fourteen elements/ten groups 
  

35mm format plastic lenses

• Kiyohara Kogaku 
• Soft VK50 f/4.5 - single element plastic
• Soft VK70 f/5 - single element plastic 
• Lomo Plastic Diana lenses 
• Yasuhara Momo 100 43mm f/6.4 Soft Focus

In general I feel the lenses in the above list can be good for re-creating Pictorialist Era images.  The following comparison attempts to share what I mean by this.  I've taken the "best" looking images from four different soft focus approaches and put them side by side for easier review.

 

If you fancy trying your hand at old Pictorialist era images, something from the above list might appeal to you.  And if your experience is anything like mine, it might take a bit of time, patience, and practice to get results that truly please.  Patience seems to be the key in learning the capabilities and limitations of the soft focus practice.

Of the images in the above comparison I find I really like the meniscus lens. I literally stumbled on a configuration that works and see it at "f/2.8" to be pretty nice.  Even at "f/4", this little cheap throw-away lens has some interesting properties to explore.  A downside is it's a little funky to work with as two slim extension tubes are involved in getting the focus range approximately usable.

Just behind the meniscus lens "look", I like the Orton Effect digital softening filter.  This tool is very configurable, and therefore very controllable.  You can set the overlaying Gaussian blur, blend mode, and opacities to just about anything and watch what happens to an image.  In the above example I chose a blend, opacity, blur width that, to my eyes, came somewhat close to duplicating the effects I get from the meniscus lens.

For pure hard-core optical effects, the Pentax 85mm f/2.2 Soft set at f/5.6 is pretty interesting.  I'm not sure if/when/how I will ever come to real terms with the objective.  When I go into the field it feels like a risk to take this lens and be somehow disappointed by the results and to come back with nothing.  So I tend not to work too much with it.  Maybe I should take my own advice and just dive in?

Should you seek some inspiration, check out Eric Lindbloom's "Angels at the Arno."  It is a beautiful book filled with images made using a simple plastic lens (an old Russian Diana, I believe), which might prove the point that wonderful images can be made with just about anything.  

Personally, I'm inspired by the "New Pictorialist" editor Chetworth delGato's Minolta 85mm f/2.8 Varisoft images.  It's too bad those lenses currently cost the moon.  There are many claims these lenses are rare, but I easily see them all over eBay. For a price, of course.

Turning to the David Hamilton/Max Stolzenberg stye images, here is a re-post comparison of soft filters vs nose oil (and Arnica Oil - ick! ack!!).

It goes without saying that the Nikkor Soft filters have little to no correspondence with Hamilton's nor Stolzenberg's "look."  Similarly, the Arnica Oil is just too much.  This is what I found when trying to work with Vaseline, too.  No matter how lightly and thinly I tried to work with Vaseline or Arnica Oil, the whole plot was always, always, always over-softened and did little more than create a mess.

As with Goldilocks and the Three Bears there seems to be a happy medium.  For me, that is the use of nose oil on a lens or, preferably, a UV Haze filter (to keep the gunk off your pristine glass).  Just take a finger and gently rub the side of your nose and then smear it over the filter (or lens, if you really insist).  It's quick, easy, and looks to mimic rather well the David Hamilton, Max Stolzenberg style.  If you want to soften just the sky/trees, simply touch that part of the filter (or lens, again, if you really insist) that collects light from that part of the scene.  If you don't "get" what I'm saying, one or two practice dabs with an oiled finger will get you pointed in the right direction.

Now, is this the actual technique that David Hamilton and Max Stolzenberg used and use?  I have no way of knowing.  But if it's their effect you're looking for, here is one way of "getting there from here."

As a demonstration of the possibilities of the greasy finger approach, consider an image I accidentally made during the 2016 traversee de Paris summer event for automobiles.  Look at what is going on with the hood area of the Talbot-Lago sportscar.  The Sony 16mm f/2.8 SEL I was using got "dabbed" by my greasy finger shortly after I arrived at la place de la Concorde in Paris.  

I didn't catch the mistake until I was back home and looking at the mysteriously soft images I'd captured.  Inspecting the lens quickly explained what had happened.  To salvage something of the images I took that day with the greased up lens I cranked up the contrast.  The out of the camera RAW are much much softer than this.  Taking that into consideration, have a look at the following image and see how the hood "glows."