[Leica] Testing Large Format Soft Focus lenses

[Ken Carney]

Long ago I bought a Rodenstock Imagon 200mm lens.  It came in a case 
with three attachments that looked like sink strainers.  The idea was 
that you could rotate these and get various levels of softness, or 
"glow" as they called it.  The person I bought it from had used it for 
portraits, but with older subjects you got the worst of all worlds, soft 
wrinkles.  The Rodenstock importer sent me a copy of "The Book of the 
Imagon" and it turns out that another use was for atmospheric shots, 
such as fog.

Here is one of my wife, Susan.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/kcarney/Susan_Mo_010903.jpg.html

Ken

On 9/3/2019 10:09 AM, Don Dory via LUG wrote:
> The latest acquisition works very well at being"bad".  Your second lens may
> improve in badness by shimming at the shutter to move the rear or front
> group a few thousandths.
>
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2019, 5:11 AM Richard Man <richard at richardmanphoto.com>
> wrote:
>
>> OK, please do not criticize the model, as these are "selfies", testing a
>> couple soft focus lens I have (actually, I probably have too many SF
>> lens....)
>>
>> This image is from an 8" Rexo Pictorialist I just got from a Russian
>> photog. It comes with an adapter for Copal 3S, which I do not have, but I
>> duck-taped the adapter to a Copal 3 shutter for testing. As expected, F4
>> and 5.6 are very soft, but the F8 looks good. Some sharpening applied etc.
>> The bokeh is really nice with very round aperture.
>>
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/richardman/LF201909AA-F01.jpg.html
>>
>> This image is from the 150mm Congo SF, also at F8. Much contrasty, which is
>> nice in its own way. This lens uses the Copal aperture, so not as round.
>>
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/richardman/LF201909AB-F03.jpg.html
>>
>>
>>
>> I also have 3 100-years old Cooke triplets of different focal length, and
>> the incomparable Cooke PS945. Yea,... too many soft focus lens.
>>
>> Film is Shanghai GP3, soaked in Xtol.
>>
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>>
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