Home made Lenses ( soft focus )

     I have gone soft in the head over soft focus lenses..... My friend just
purchased one ($1500 ) that covers 8x10 and I also bought a 14 inch color
corrected Wollensak Veritar for $650.....The images achieved from these
lenses are just fantastic......It is the equivalent of a fine impressionist
painting only in photography..... It simplifies the image.....

    The store bought Soft focus lenses made for Portraiture or Landscape
offer a clarity along with a glowing softness that will be very hard to
duplicate just jimmy rigging a filter or a few close up lenses..... In
fact I have found it to be NO COMPARISON at all as far as image quality!

          I have also been playing around with process lenses modifying
the iris from typically f 8 or f9 up to f3.5 or 4 .... I would then remove
the front element and have been getting fabulous results complete with the
halos in the high lights and diffusion, to sharp centers diffusing to the
edges...... .

There are some serious quirks and tips for shooting Soft focus but that
will have to wait. Got to go to work....
John Cremati

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Ferguson" <tomf2468@pipeline.com>
To: "Alt-Photo group" <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: Home made Lenses

> A good friend of mine (John Siskin) wrote an article for View Camera
> Magazine on do-it-yourself lenses. He uses diopters (close up filters)
> to built multi element lenses. Nicely soft wide open (as one would
> expect). The magazine issue is long out of print, but you can download
> the instructions from John's site:
>
> http://www.siskinphoto.com/
>
> Go to the magazine section. I'd give you a direct URL, but it is a
> framed site.
>
> --------------
> Tom Ferguson
> http://www.ferguson-photo-design.com
>
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________
> This message scanned for viruses by CoreComm
>
Received on Fri Mar 4 10:16:06 2005