Christopher's PhotoSketchPad: Soft Focus Photography ~ Then vs Now ~ Materials and Process Comparison

Working in miniature formats, specifically 35mm digital Full Frame and APS-C, I've been trying to understand, then look for a way of matching the Expressionist/Pictorialist as a starting point for art that uses photography. I chose lenses are a starting point because it seemed obvious to me. However, there are other starting points that might be useful as well.

Sony A7, Ricoh 50mm f/2.8, Zeiss Softar 1

The following is one way to consider and compare image making materials and processes for Expressionist/Pictorialist, and their adaptation to miniature digital work. Keeping in mind these are very broad generalizations and that there are a great many details that I'm now glossing over.

Original Expressionist/Pictorialist materials ~

Large format cameras - typically 6.5inch x 8.5inch Whole Plate, sometimes larger formats used for landscape work

Lenses - The base glass types were heavy crown and flint. They had certain properties that were well understood at the time where designers had to work within the limits of the materials. Two types of lenses were commonly designed. One type was as well corrected for sharpness across the field as the technologies of the time would allow. Classic Sharp Photographers as well as Expressionist/Pictorialists used this kind of optic. The other lens type was designed for a specific soft focus "look" which took advantage of specific optical imperfections. A lot of attention is paid to just this one area of Expressionist/Pictorialist images (including by me with all the little things that I've written over the years and somehow insist on continuing here).

Light Sensitive Plates - Wet Plate Collodion, then dry plate isochromatic moving into orthochromatic were the only options. These "saw" UV/blue light only for the earliest emulsions, and started to "see" into green light with orthochromatic emulsions later.

Original Expressionist/Pictorialist processes ~

Image Taking - Lenses of any type projected the whole spectrum of light onto a focusing ground glass, with emphasis on the yellow portion. There was a problem, however, in that lenses were under-corrected for chromatic and spherical aberrations. What the eye "saw" on the ground glass was not what the light sensitive emulsion "saw" as the point of focus. The phenomenon is called "chemical focus" and much was written on this very specific topic to help photographers of any kind correct for the point of focus offset between what the photographer saw and what the lens/emulsion delivered.

Image Making - Classic Photographers let the materials dictate the outcome and they did little to nothing to intervene after composition/lighting/exposure on the way to making a print. These were the "sharp" image makers.

Expressionist/Pictorialist Photographers started where the Classic Photographer left off.

After processing a negative, paper internegatives could be used to (literally) draw on. Background scene creation, retouching, dodging/burning, multiple image overlays were the things artists used on their way towards making a final print.

The materials for the final image could minimally be platinum/palladium, carbon tissue, gum bichromate, or bromoil.

How much character of a lens that made it into a final print depended on how much rework had been done and how much texture was added. Anything was possible, from a nearly "straight" print where a lens' full character might come through, all the way to bromoil where an image is brushed on photo print paper where a lens' character might be completely lost. In this way, lenses might have been used for making sketches over which an artist might impose their art.

This is where the idea of "lenses that draw" comes from.

Digital Expressionist/Pictorialist materials ~

Cameras and Sensors - To take advantage of certain lenses it is best to have a camera with interchangeable lenses. Sensors typically cut off UV and IR. It's the UV that could be useful if the goal is to precisely match isochromatic or orthochromatic emulsions from the 1800s. For this a user can use a "full spectrum" sensor coupled with specific filters that allow UV and blue wet plate spectrum, or UV, blue and green as in the case of orthochromatic emulsion light sensitivities.

Lenses - Modern lenses are very well corrected for just about any optical defect, due, in part, to the need to "hold onto sharpness" when an image is enlarged.

To implement this narrow area of Expressionist/Pictorialist image expression it can be helpful to seek out specific lenses and, possibly, certain soft focus filter types.

Find lenses used perhaps with filters that give between 0.35% and 0.60% blur radii as calculated on the narrow target image dimension. Solutions include, but are no means limited to -

First element focusing lenses

Ricoh 50mm f/2.8 m42 tessar design
Cosina Cosinon/Reveunon/etc 50mm f/2.8 tessar design
ISCO Iscotar/Iscovitar 50mm f/2.8 m42 Cooke triplet design
Steinheil Auto-Cassaron 50mm f/2.8 m42 Cooke triplet design
Ricoh 55mm f/2.2 Pentax K four element four group design

Soft Focus filters - potentially used with the above listed lenses

Duto concentric circle
Heliopan Duto concentric circle
Zeiss Softar 1
Hoya/Kenko/Hama Softener "A"

NOTE: I use blur percentage here as it frees up considerations for image print/viewing size and camera format. The calculation is simple.
Percent Blur Radius = ( Measured Blur Radius / Width of Image ) x 100 - where units for radius and image are equal (ie: millimeters or pixels or inches)
NOTE 2: First element focusers show the most blur when shot wide open. Sometimes good blur can be had one stop down, but it all depends on the lens.
NOTE 3: Duto and micro-lens filters can show their pattern when a lens is stopped too far down. So these are best used with the lens shot wide open, which fits nicely with NOTE 2.
NOTE 4: Frosted soft focus filter types tend to blur beyond the 0.35% to 0.60% target radii. So I'm learning to avoid them. Similarly number 2 Softar and Softener B filters.
NOTE 5: SLR lenses that give user control over element separation may be worth examining. The Minolta Varisoft 85mm is well know, but the Sigma XQ series with macro ring might be worth a visit to measure blur radii.

Expressionst/Pictorialist landscape photography typically deployed focal lengths where the edges of the field were well corrected with as minimal optical distortion (coma, astimatism, spherical aberration) as possible, while still achieving a certain level of softness (in French terms, chromatic aberration, though in modern optical implementations can be controllable spherical aberration with a touch of chromatic aberration - depending upon the lens deployed). Potential optical solutions include, but are certainly not limited to -

First element focusing lenses

Ricoh 50mm f/2.8 m42 tessar design
Cosina Cosinon/Reveunon/etc 50mm f/2.8 tessar design
Ricoh 55mm f/2.2 Pentax K four element four group design

Soft Focus filters - potentially used with the above listed lenses

Zeiss Softar 1
Hoya/Kenko/Hama Softener "A"

Expressionst/Pictorialist/Tripholium portrait and still life photography typically deployed lenses of sufficient speed to keep exposures to a minimum, and accepted optical defects towards the edges of the field as a compromise, and what they found back in the day to be pleasing. For current day practitioners it can be a real task to find lenses that exhibit these kinds of imperfections near the edges of the field. Here are potential, but by no means the only, solutions -

First element focusing lenses

ISCO Iscotar/Iscovitar 50mm f/2.8 m42 Cooke triplet design
Steinheil Auto-Cassaron 50mm f/2.8 m42 Cooke triplet design

Soft Focus filters - potentially used with the above listed lenses

Hoya/Kenko/Hama Duto concentric circle
Heliopan Duto concentric circle

Adapting First Element Focusing Lenses - When adapted to a helicoid focusing device, first element focusing lenses can vary blur radii based on focusing ring position. Set the lens' focusing ring to the desired position that defines a blur radius of interest, then use a helicoid adapter between the lens and digital mirrorless camera to effectuate the actual focus. This is why I've found it useful/important to measure blur radii for each lens. Radii vary be implementation. Some lenses are better corrected at infinity than close up. Some are better corrected close up.

Japanese SLR Soft Focus Lenses - Special purpose Soft Focus lenses for 35mm and 120 tend to deliver blur radii well beyond the 0.35% to 0.60% blur radii of early soft focus lenses. However, aperture can help tame blur, so it's worth testing and measuring.

I once owned a Pentax 85mm f/2.2 SF that I could never come to grips with and nearly gave it away out of frustration. This is not to mean they are unworkable. Certainly photographers more talented than I have made them work the treat. It's just that they're not workable for me, and certainly in the narrow environment I'm exploring here.

However, the Last Great Pictorialist has hinted that a Minolta Varisoft 85mm can be pressed into proper service. The secret I'm told is to set the softness ring between "0" and "1". Anything more than that becomes too "soft."

Digital Expressionist/Pictorialist processes ~

Digital image processing software, particularly those adapted to graphics use (the Gimp, Photoshop, etc) provide a nearly limitless landscape of possibilities. There's not much more to be said. The only thing I can think is just how much early practitioners might have appreciated what we have today to work with.

Comments ~

There is no magic in choosing blur radii of 0.35% to 0.60%. It is simply the balance point between sharp and soft that practitioners of the era seemed to appreciate the most.

Not all Expressionist/Pictorialist is soft focus. There is beauty to be found in sharp images and I'm of the increasing opinion that this is related to the tonal relationships, which are easy to mimic in digital work.

----------- Essential Reading --------------

Dr. Russell Young's thesis paper on soft focus photography

Biblioteque de la Revue de Photographie - L. de Pulligny - C. Puyo "Objectifs d'Artiste Practique et Theorie des Objectifs et Teleobjectifs Anachromatique" - Biblioteque national de France (BnF) (in French)

Robert Demachy. Impressions de Normandie (photographies du Calvados, 1880-1920) [2016] - Julien Faure-Conorton (this paper and M. Faure-Conorton's other works are very insightful and worth the time to read through - particularly his thesis paper)

----------- Notable Practitioners of Art through Photography ------------

----------- On Soft Filters --------------

Soft Filters in Cinematography

M. David Mullen, ASC

M. David Mullen, ASC on cinema and photography

Soft filtration options

A question of diffusion

----------- Additional Resources ------------