Home made Lenses ( was Large Format Lens Question. Low tech answer)

       The book "Primitive Photography : A Guide to Making Cameras, Lenses,
and Calotypes
by Alan Greene is just excellent with a full chapter on making a home made
primitive lens and the likes I recomend this book highly for this subject
matter ..... They use PVC pipe for thier barrel material and take you thru
the whole process step by step................
          What is great about these home brewed lenses is that with all of
the abberations of a simple lens you may be lucky enought to have come up
with a great combination for a soft focus lens similar to what many of the
early masters used..........They offer a softness yet a clarity that is
absolutley incredibly bueatiful. The applications of these SF lenses in
Portraiture, Still life, and Lanscape is the equivilent to a master
impressionistic painting.....
      You can even experiment and take a 4 second picture and use 2 seconds
with the lens wide open for softness and flares in the highlights and 2
seconds with the lens stopped down for maximum sharpness......

     It is not the same as just adding a soft focus filter onto a lens as
the image will have a unique quality to it.... Creating a lens is a project
that would have emense rewards and ad dramatically to your artistic
pallets....
Regards,
John Cremati
Received on Sat Feb 26 15:32:10 2005