Soft Focus Photography

Here is some good information on doing soft focus photography, which is sometimes a lost art that most of today's photographers do not take, but they can make nice and artistic photo for some people...

When ever the subject of soft focus photography comes up, all the urban legends, technical myths, misconceptions and strange improvisations seem to come alive as if resurrected from the dead. Yes- I know people use Vaseline, KY products, and Vicks Vapo-O-Rub on old skylight filters and this works to some degree. Black plastic screening, nylon stockings and clear nail polish on the edges of filter ain’t half bad but those methods can be both messy and inconsistent. For me, breathing on my lens is not an option, I like my garlic pizza and my breath may take the coating off my lenses. Besides, I’m in Canada- if I breath on my lens while shooting out of doors in the winter, the lens may crack and fall of the camera.

It is interesting to note that the entire motion picture of “Fiddler on the Roof” was shot through a pair of pantyhose stretched across the mat box of a Panavison Camera. What with all the technology available to the motion picture industry and all the top talent involved with that production, one would think that some specialized filter or post production technique would have imparted that old world warm look on the film but the pantyhose did the trick and beat out all the others as far as what the producers and the DOP were looking for.

Nonetheless, here is the real story about the soft focus imagery as to how it works and how to use in effectively.

The basic classical soft focus effect is not based on interfereing with the performance of a perfectly sharp lens, shooting out of focus or degrading the image in any way. It is, however, based on optics and lighting technology and a fine lens which is especially designed to accommodate the effect. In the paragraphs below, I will explain some of the optical phenomena but for now, I want to start with the “look”. If you look at a well executed soft focus image you will see two images, firstly the primary image which is relatively sharp. The secondary image seems to place “glow” alongside the primary image almost it was emanating from the sharper image thus, creating the classical ethereal effect and mood of great soft focus work. This effect is common to a number readily available selection of lenses and is based on the Rodenstock Imagon formula. There is the Mamiya Sekor 150mm SF lens for the Mamiya RZ line of cameras, the Fugi SF created for their medium format system and the Imagon adaptation model for the Hasselblad system. This effect, surprisingly enough, is beautifully simulated by the Zeiss series of Softar filters- all of the other aforementioned lenses are prime lenses produced specifically for the camera bodies of the same manufacture.

I am into soft focus lenses for the retro and theatrical looks. The basic lighting for this kind of photography is rather hard lighting. The hard lighting creates a sufficient degree of specular and diffuse highlights to enable the aforementioned glowing effect. I have adapted old Imagon and other such lenses first to my medium format cameras and now to my DSLRs. I do quite a bit of analog black and white on with theses lenses but I also like soft colors as well- reminiscent of the old color film and hand tinting.

Before we get into some practical applications, I though it would be a good idea to talk about some of the technical aspects the optic involved, the famous soft focus lenses themselves and other informational details. I have been researching the subject for a lot of years. I have used only a hand full of some of the lenses mentioned but I have tested others for friends and seen some of them in use by some of my collogues. Many of theses lenses require the use of large or medium format equipment and film. Some medium format and large format cameras can be fitted with digital backs. Presently Canon produces a 135mm SF lens for its current line of digital cameras and the results are outstanding. That lens works on the same principle as the Mamiya Sekor 150mm SF- with the interchangeable grills. I have listed the others in some of the following paragraphs incase anyone out there runs in to one of those old rare models or wants to hunt one down for their own use.

Over the years there has been some controversy, among photographers as to the making of soft focus images altogether. This goes back a long way to Ansil Adams and his f/64 Group which insisted that every photograph should be tack sharp with a plethora of detail and the opposing school of though which seems to have been led by William Mortensen and his followers who applied a fantasy and (early Hollywood) theatrical mood to their photography. In the art and photographic world there have always been opposing philosophies between the realists, the and the a style of photography, popular at the turn of the 20th century, using soft-focus techniques to imitate academic painting.
Critic A: "This image has a certain ethereal quality.
Critic B: "It's a fuzzy picture."

The use of soft-focus lenses has always been somewhat controversial as well as rather difficult. To me, they are a rather specialized tool, something like the fish-eye lenses. I have seen many fish-eye pictures I didn't care for at all, but a few I found wonderful. Similarly, there are awful soft-focus images, but some of the all-time great photographs are soft. The names Stieglitz and Steichen jump into mind. Many think of these lenses as merely a way to "erase wrinkles", but in the right hands they can help in creating beautiful landscapes and provide a mood that strengthens other photographs. Soft-focus lenses are tools. Like other tools they can provide results that are good or bad. At one point in my career, I decided to harness all the craziness of the strange and exotic glass so that I cold have tools at my disposal with repeatable and consistent controllability. I was pleased to find that the nice folks and Rodenstock, Mamiya, Fugi. Minolta and canon had done most of the work for me in their design and production of soft focus lenses that actually were not “wild and crazy” as some of their ancestors. Yet in most cases, you can not pop one of theses lenses on your camera and have success right of the bat. Some of theses lenses do not even come with instruction manuals that go into any great detail. The one that came with my first Imagon said something to this effect- I paraphrase: Thank you for dropping nearly 2 grand for this lens. What you have purchased is the photographer’s equivalent if an artist’s paint brush- we can tell you how wide or narrow it is what kinds of bristles are in it and how long the handle is but we can’t REALLY tell you how to use it for the exact effect you are looking for. So now that you have this diamond in the rough you will probably invest (waste) another 2 grand in time and materials to “get it”. If you have no talent, may the Lord have mercy on you soul when your wife finds the invoice. Well- they do have good resale value so if you can’t use it, just stash it away for a few years and you will probably get back what you paid for it and perhaps then some.

No lens is perfect. All lenses have defects known as aberrations that cause the image to be less than perfect. Softness of focus is the result of one or more of these aberrations being strong enough to be noticeable. One aberration is the "spherical". It is comparatively easy to grind a lens surface which is a segment of a sphere, but a surface like that can't quite put an image into correct focus. Lens designers have to use several surfaces working together to reduce spherical aberration to useful levels. The most common means of producing a soft-focus lens is to allow some spherical aberration to remain. A caution; some very early soft focus lenses also had significant amounts of chromatic aberration; they couldn't focus different colors onto the same plane. Unless you intend to use only blue-sensitive film, no longer readily available, these would not be a good idea. The tip for identifying these lenses is that they will not contain an achromatic component - two or more glasses together. Two examples are the Dallmeyer-Bergheim a telephoto soft-focus lens, and the Puligny-Puyo.

Many photographers still alive, and perhaps still working, today, started off with a soft-focus lens, although they probably have never thought of it that way. During the 1920's and 30's, Box Brownies and other simple cameras were apt to be fitted with a single meniscus lens - one piece of glass with convex curves on both surfaces, thicker in the middle than the edges. These exhibited most every aberration in the book, but had a small enough aperture that images were usable.

There are two categories of people. Those who divide into categories and those who do not. There are two categories of soft-focus lens. Those which provide selection of softness without changing the aperture, and those which do not. Let’s discuss the latter first. The smaller the aperture, the less spherical aberration affects the image. This provides the basis for making the simpler forms of soft-focus lenses. You need only two pieces of glass to make a basic achromat, a lens which will focus different colors of light together well enough to provide a usable image, but which has too much spherical aberration to produce a sharp image at larger apertures. Put a diaphragm in front of this lens, stop it down to f16, and you can make a fairly sharp photograph. This is the construction of two of the four soft-focus lenses that I am aware of being made today. These are the Rodenstock Imagon and the current version of the Fujinon soft-focus lenses. (Earlier Fujinon SF lenses were triplets.) These lenses have peculiar diaphragms - removable discs with central holes surrounded by a ring of smaller holes which can be opened or closed. Buyers of used lenses should be sure that all the discs are present. Imagon lenses are made in 250 and 300mm focal lengths as well as versions for medium format cameras. The Fujinons come in 180 and 250mm lengths. There can be an occasional problem with these lenses. Strong highlights can be surrounded by a ring of little lights - an image of the diaphragm.
The other two current soft-focus lenses are made by Yamasaki and Cooke. Under the "Congo" name, soft focus triplets are made by Yamasaki in 150mm and 200mm lengths. To date, Cooke produces only one size, the 9" (229mm) PS945. The Cooke design is based on a very old lens, the Pinkham-Smith, which, along with the Busch Nicola Perscheid, has become something of a cult item, particularly in Japan, receiving very high prices on the used market. There were several series of P& S lenses, later sold under the Smith name only, which differed in their characteristics. I don't know which was used as a design basis by Cooke.

Speaking of used items, most are quite old, but there is less reason to reject a soft-focus lens because of age than there is when searching for a normal lens. O.K., it won't be as sharp as a new lens. You don't want it to be. It won't be coated, and it won't have the contrast of later designs. Most of your subjects will not want high contrast treatment. Flare could be a problem, but that's what lens shades and lighting control are for. Many soft-focus lenses have rather narrow coverage for their focal lengths and this can be helpful where flare is concerned.

Still speaking of lenses which control the amount of softness only by the aperture, there are many different designs which may be available at least occasionally. One of the more common is the Wollensak Veritar. They have an achromat pair at the back and a large meniscus lens at the front. The combination gives a peculiar result in stopping down. All the gain in depth of field is behind the plane of sharp focus, so instead of focusing on an eye when making a portrait, you need to focus on the tip of the nose. They are among the few older soft-focus lenses which came in (large) synchronized shutters. A still earlier Wollensak product was the Verito. Except for the two smallest sizes, this was an f4 lens, the back group of which could be used by itself. It may have been a Rapid Rectilinear type, but more likely a Petzval.

The Kodak Portrait Lens is an achromat like those of the Imagon and Fujinon lenses, but has a normal diaphragm instead of removable discs. The Spencer Port-Land, the Hanovia "Kalosat" and the Cooke Achromatic Portrait are of similar construction. The same description would also apply to early "landscape lenses”. The basic difference is that those intended as soft-focus lenses have larger apertures.

Some Dallmeyer lenses fall into this grouping. One type was just called the "Dallmeyer Soft Focus. It appears to be similar to the Kodak. Another was the "Mutac", unusual in that it was a triple convertible. You could use the lens complete or with either of the cells by itself.

The Petzval Portrait was a special case, not really a soft-focus lens, since it is very sharp in the center. The very first mathematically computed lens, it goes back to within a year of the public introduction of photography and the aim was to produce a lens fast enough to take people pictures. Softness in the outer areas was not intentional, but was accepted in order to attain the desired speed. It also has an inward curving field. Aside from wide-angles, most of the Darlot lenses found today are modified Petzval types, some, the Ross, for example, offering a flatter field. Burke & James were still offering new modified Petzval type portrait lenses into the 1970's.

The other category consists of a normal lens, as far as the glass is concerned, with a means of varying the lens elements so as to produce a controllable amount of spherical aberration, thus giving you some measure of control independent of the aperture. Stopping down will, of course, still create a sharper image, but you have a degree of control over depth of field in addition to amount of diffusion.

Here we go with categories again. Some of these lenses are based on anastigmat designs, some are not. Those which are not are mostly Petzval designs, and those most frequently seen are made by Dallmeyer, who started making portrait lenses with diffusion control in 1866. You want shallow depth of field? Try the Dallmeyer Patent Portrait No. 8D, 37" (934mm) focal length, f6. If speed is your thing, the B series was f3. Most of these well deserve the term "brass cannon". You need a very solid camera with a large lens board to make use of all but the smallest sizes. The glass ranged up to 6" diameter. They were also extremely expensive, up to over $400 at a time when you could buy an Eastman View Camera for $19.00. The smaller sizes carried a rack and pinion focusing movement, and you had to pay extra for an iris diaphragm instead of Waterhouse stops. Ross also made lenses of this type in f3.5 aperture.

The Wollensak "Vitax" is probably a Petzval type. It was made in at least three sizes from ten to 16 inches (254 to 406mm). It is distinctive in having a knob on the side as the diffusion adjustment means. It may be found in a "Studio" shutter, an iris diaphragm type working in only the "Bulb" mode. Also apparently a Petzval type is the Eastman Portrait Lens, not to be confused with the Kodak Portrait of much later production. "Eagle" Portrait Lenses were sold by George Murphy Inc., and I think this probably was a Murphy house brand. There were several series, both with and without the diffusion adjustment.
Turning to the anastigmats, many makers provided at least a few lenses with a soft focus adjustment added to lenses selected from their normal production range. An exception was the Graf "Variable", designed from the start as an adjustable diffusion type. The name derives from the fact that the focal length and the aperture changed a little as the soft focus was selected. Edward Weston was among the several prominent users of Graf lenses. Wollensak made some lenses of this type, probably Tessars. The ones I have seen were Series II, but there may have been others. In England, they were made by Taylor, Taylor & Hobson (Cooke), Dallmeyer, Beck and possibly others. Cooke lenses are the most common, in Series II, f4.5 and Series VI, f5.6, but not all Series II Cookes have the diffusion device. Many Cooke lenses have very prominent adjustment handles with two finger openings, sometimes referred to as "spectacles". The absence of these does not necessarily mean that there is no diffusion adjustment, however. The only Continental anastigmats with a soft-focus feature that have come to my attention are the Voigtlander "Universal" Heliar and the Zeiss Portrait Unar, also made under license by Bausch & Lomb. There probably have been others, though.

Like other tools, the use of soft-focus lenses improves with practice. There is a problem in that the ground glass gives only a limited idea of what the final print will look like. It would be a good idea to take a series of otherwise identical photos with differing settings of aperture and (if provided) diffusion control, when first trying out a soft-focus lens. The resulting prints can then be used as references when making future photographs.

There are many methods of softening focus without use of a special lens. One idea, frequently suggested, is to diffuse the focus during enlargement. There is a commercial item for this purpose, the Pictrol, too small at 2" inside diameter to go in front of most large format camera lenses. The problem here is that diffusion during a printing process produces a different result. Diffusion onto a negative spreads light out into the shadow areas. Diffusion during printing spreads darkness into the highlights. The result has been described as being suitable for portraits of the Addams family.

One early device mechanically jiggled the focus control during exposure, the apparent aim being to increase depth of field. Some early lenses were advertised as having great depth of field. This was the same as saying that they were soft.
Some experimenters have used the rather hazardous means of partially unscrewing a cell or cells of a normal lens. My first photograph with a new wide angle lens produced a picture of a youth choir looking somewhat more angelic than expected. I traced the phenomenon to a lens board a little too thick to allow the cells to fully come into position. As it turned out, the choir director liked the result. If I were going to try something that might result in accident to the lens, I think I would try it on one of the surplus Xerox lenses. These are typically 8 1/4", f4.5, made by very good manufacturers. As of this writing, Copy Raptars are available at www.surplusshed.com at $10.00. The last I knew, these lenses by T, T& H, B& L and Rank were available at www.candhsales.com at $16.50. The Raptars appear to be normal production items, while the others were designed especially for copy machines and may have been color corrected for the near monochromatic light of these machines.

Some people have smeared Vaseline onto the front of their lenses. I think I would prefer to smear up a filter rather than a lens. Others have used everything from cigar smoke to a piece of ladies stocking material in front of the lens. In the latter case, sometimes holes are burned into the fabric to modify the results. Hollywood types have employed fog machines. There are commercial diffusing discs. The Zeiss Softar seems to be the most highly regarded device of this type. It has a series of concentric thread-like rings formed into the glass and is rather expensive. Newer Softars use a different design; there are smaller “sub-lenses” in the filter which create the secondary images at all apertures. The older models with the concentric rings produce the softest effect when the lens is wide open or at 1 stop down and the image becomes progressively sharper as the aperture is stopped down.

There are ways of upsetting carefully calculated spherical aberration reduction besides changing element spacing. A thick glass plate is one. Adding various combinations of weak positive and negative elements, Proxar and Distar and the like, might be another.

SOFT FOCUS TECHNIQUES IN PRACTICAL USEAGE TODAY: I am a commercially oriented portraitist serving the general public, business, industry, the theatrical/musical community and families. I can not be a one note photographer and sped my life fighting with other photographers as to the validity or superiority of one style of photography versus another. Like any other service business I need to offer a variety of techniques and styles to accommodate the broad spectrum of clientele that I cater to. 
Musicians call it their repertoire, magicians call it their “bag of tricks, and auto mechanics call it their lists of services. I simply offer various approaches to accommodate the needs of my various. The soft focus technique is one of my “tricks” or “services” that appeal to many of my clients both for cosmetic purposes and/or for the moods which this technique supports.

It is true that PhotoShop and other plug-in kinds of effects that will create a softer image but they are nothing like the unique look of what you can do with some of theses prime lenses and some of the antique models. It is also fun trying to hunt down some of theses relics and press them into use. The newer prim soft focus lenses yield great soft effects but can still stand up to higher degrees of enlargement. I have made 3-x40 from negatives and scans made in my RZ system with no loss of quality.