Re: Soft Focus

[Richard Knoppow <dickburk@ix.netcom.com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Cremati" <johnjohnc@core.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 3:56 PM
Subject: Soft Focus


>       This is a fantastic book on Soft focus lenses and 
> portraiture.  .
> There is a number of master portrait photographers  who 
> describe each  of
> their portraits , the lens used, lighting  details ect.. I 
> believe every two
> pages is another photographer... The last copy of this 
> sold for over $125 I
> believe.
>
>        If you are considering buying a historic soft focus 
> lens, this book
> will allow you to compare the effects of each lens..  All 
> Soft Focus lenses
> are not created equal as you will see in this 
> book...Personally I like a
> portrait lens that  will allow you to focus  sharp toward 
> the center and
> blurs off to the edges allowing you to control both the 
> amount of blur as
> well as the area that is sharp. Couple this with a very 
> large aperture and
> the effect can be   dramatic  producing  halo's , fog, ect 
> on top of the
> diffusion..........
> Good luck if you buy this book as I am sure you will be 
> pleased.....Most of
> these  photographers  and their secrets  are no longer 
> with us.
>
> John Cremati
>
>
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=140250707633&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=004
   I have another book by the same author on lighting for 
product advertising. I don't remember the title and the book 
is not at hand but its something like "Commercial Lighting". 
Another book which discusses portrait lighting is John 
Alton's _Painting with Light_. Its about motion picture 
lighting, written by an academy award winning director of 
photography. The original is quite rare but it was reprinted 
not too long ago by, I think, the American Society of 
Cinematographers. I've not done a seach for it but it should 
not be too difficult to find.

  There have been all sorts of soft focus lenses. Most make 
use of uncorrected spherical aberration but some of the 
early ones also used chromatic aberration, part of the 
softness of box camera lenses is due to the lack of 
chromatic correction in most of them.
  As I mentioned before a different sort of soft focus 
effect can be gotten by using various sorts of diffusers 
over the lens. One really has to experiment to see what the 
effects are. One can also have a hole, either round or 
shaped (for instance star shaped) in the diffuser.
  Soft focus effects when enlarging from a negative result 
in a different effect since the bright areas in the negative 
are the shadows so the effect is to broaden out the outlines 
of shadows rather than highlights. I have never personally 
liked this effect since I find it muddy but its been used 
often enough. Of course the effect when enlarging from a 
transparency is similar to what one gets on the camera but 
without the variation in effect from differences in 
distance. You can waste many happy hours experimenting with 
this.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com