More Pictures from the DIY Soft Focus Lens

Took the lens out today and shot around the Bathurst and Dundas area while the kids are swimming at the community centre. Overall, I am happy with the lens. It does produce some unique pictures and is kind of fun that it's different from a normal lens.

Few More Pictures from the DIY Soft Focus Lens

[updated Dec-30-2009 for spelling errors]

Tried out the lens more yesterday. Found that the aperture helps very little. Stopping way down produced severe vignetting, but does not seem to affect Depth of Field much. Focusing is tough because everything looks soft and it's hard to find a focus point. The soft effect tend to be too much. Placing the lens element exposed in the front of the lens probably causes that. As expected, back lit scenes are mostly unusable. Some fine tuning/redesign is in order.

Regardless, it was a fun exercise. My next project is to create my own Lens Baby :-)

All pictures taken with a Canon 5D and my DIY soft focus Lens. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Do It Yourself Soft Focus Lens

While writing about the Sima SF 100mm f2 soft focus lens, I had an idea to make one myself. With all kinds of junk -- tubes, lens barrels, mounts that I have left over from unsuccessful repairs or just dismantle them for fun, I had enough parts.

This particular lens is made from these parts:

• A lens elements from an unknown lens -- Don't remember which lens it come from
• Part of a lens barrel with focusing helicoid from a T-mount telephoto lens
• T-Mount for M42
• 3 different digital camera adapter tubes
• Electrical Tape

That's it. The hard part is to find all the parts that fit together. First is to find a lens element that fits the lens barrel. Depending on the design, some are for wide angle, some are for telephoto. Once your found the lens element, the rest is to make it fit, and that it can focus to infinity (not a requirement depending on how you use the lens).

What I found is that this one actually has better colour. In fact, the colours are very intense. It could be because the lens element is coated, which increases colour fidelity. In any case, it was fun making it, and even more fun to use it.

Cubes! -- 5D & DIY Soft Focus Lens