Photography
Because soft focus is a technical flaw, many older lenses had soft focus built in as a side effect of their construction. Newer lenses are optimized to minimize optical aberrations, but there are lenses such as the Canon EF 135mm lens f/2.8 with Softfocus and Pentax SMC 28mm f2.8 FA Soft Lens, to name but two, which have adjustable levels of spherical aberration at wide apertures. The effect can be disabled entirely as well, in which case the lens is sharp.
In the mid-1930s, Leitz designed a legendary soft-focus lens, the Thambar 90mm f2.2, for the Leica rangefinder cameras. It was made in small numbers, no more than 3000 units. It is a rare collector's item today.
Nikon produces a series of DC ("Defocus Control") lenses which are sometimes confused with the soft focus effect, but these are not soft focus lenses, as they do not introduce spherical aberration over the whole field.
The soft focus effect is used as an effect for glamour photography, because the effect eliminates blemishes, and in general produces a dream-like image.
The effect of a soft focus lens is sometimes approximated by the use of diffusion filter or other method, such as stretching a nylon stocking over the front of the lens, or smearing petroleum jelly on a clear filter or on the front element of the lens itself.
It can also be approximated with post-processing procedures. Specifically, highlights in an image are blurred.
Read more about this topic: Soft Focus
Famous quotes containing the word photography:
“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)