Frank van Lindert wrote:
>>Kenko makes three soft lenses in 35mm/4, 45mm/4.5 and 85mm/2.5.
>>The OM mount is available.
>
>I own a Zuiko 100/2.8 soft focus portrait lens!
>
>This is a 'normal' 100/2.8, which has been converted by a portrait
>photographer who also owned a camera repair shop. [...]
>What did he do? He built a disc into the lens, not far from the
>position of the aperture blades, with a large hole in the middle. This
>centre hole is just as large as the aperture when opened to 5.6. In
>the remaining part of the disc many smaller holes (about 1-2mm) were
>drilled, which actually cause the 'softening' effect. The disc is made
>out of aluminium painted black matte.
>
>Result of this is that with aperture 5.6 or smaller the lens behaves
>like a normal 100mm short tele, but when you open the aperture to 4.0
>or 2.8 you will get the softening effect caused by the
>semi-transparent disc.
>
>Simple idea, but very efficient in practice.
Nice job! However, the idea itself is not original. I have a screw
mount EBC Fujinon 85mm "soft focus" lens, which has exactly the same
solution -- built-in into the lens by the factory. I don't know who
owns the patent on this.
AFAIK, in the past both Minolta and Pentax also had 85mm "soft focus"
lenses -- in manual focus only. Nikon still offers two DC (Defocus
Control) lenses: 105/f2 and 135/f2, both in AF. Several MF equipment
makers also offer soft focus portrait lenses. To my knowledge, all
of the above are able to _gradually_ change the amount of "softness"
in the pict., but I'm not sure how this feature is implemented inside
the lens.
Cheers,
/Gary Schloss.
Studio City, CA
schloss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|