Briggs special portrait 8x10
Jay De Fehr
currently looking for a portrait lens for it. The local
camera store, by some coincidence has two portrait lenses
for the 8x10 format. One is a Wollensak verito 14.5" in a
non working studio shutter, and the other is a" Briggs'
special Portrait f5 8x10, Z.T. Briggs & co. I've never heard
of this second lens and have no idea of it's focal length or
value. It is in a barrel with stops from 5-22. Am I correct
in suspecting that these may not be standard stops? The iris
is smooth and very round, especially compared to the
Wollensak. The rear element shows separation and the front
some haze.
I would like to make an offer on both lenses but don't
have a good idea what the value of the Briggs lens might be.
Would $400 be a fair offer for both lenses? Any help offered
would be much appreciated.
Sincerely,
J. De Fehr
Ted Harris
are looking for a soft focus lens. Search a bit and you will find either a
modern Imagon or a modern Fujinon SF lens for $400.
Ted Harris
Resource Strategy
Henniker, New Hampshire
Jay De Fehr
over older ones, aside from condition?
J.
Ted Harris
and add more info onteh older lenses. To the best of my knowledge the classic
portrait lenses from Kodak and Wollensak achieved their 'soft focus' effect by
moving the front element of the lens. I believe there are alos some which were
popular for portraits simply because they were not well corrected. Such
movement will change the focus slightlyof the entire image.
Both the Rodenstock Imagons and the Fujinon soft focus lenses (and the Zeiss
Softar filters/add on lenses for thta matter) take a different approach. These
lenses start out as well corrected achromats with modern coatings. If you use
just the lens you have a sharp, high resolution lens with good contrast. Then
you start tinkering; in the case of the Imagon in front of the front element,
in the case of the Fujinon between the front element and the shutter. The
tinkering takes the form of adding a disc that has holes punched in it. The
Imagon has three discs and the Fujinon two. Each of the discs gives you a
different leel of diffusion or 'out-of-focus' effect. The key point is that
the entire iamge is not diffused or out of focus, only parts and by careful
movement of the camera and or subject and/or rotationof the disc yo ucan insure
that you get the slightly diffused, soft effect you are seeking in yoru
portrait for important facial areas while maintaining critical sharpness on the
eyes for example.
If you want a picture of the lens and its discs to get a better idea I'd be
happy to send you one.
Thus the twomain reasons (IMHO) to use one of these modern lenses are:
1) the better quality of the optical correction, glass and coatings.
2) the abiloity to maintain critical sharpnes in some areas of the picture
(e.g. the subject's eyes).
Let me know if youw ant more info and if you want a pictuer of a lens and its
accessory discs to get a clearer pictuer of what I am saying then let me know
and I will email same.
Cheers,
Ted
Richard Knoppow
I must start out by saying I never heard of the Briggs lens and
can't comment on it specifically.
A couple of approaches are used for softening portraits. Soft focus
lenses operate by being not very well corrected in some way. The most
usually way is to have uncorrected spherical aberration. Some use
uncorrected chromatic aberration but these are rare since the effect
is hard to control and varies with the material used. Obviously, such
a lens is useless for color work.
Sperical aberration looks can cause a loss of contrast similar to
flare but its main effect is to cause a sort of soft halo around
highlights. A lens with enough SA has a sort of fuzzy focal length,
the various parts or zones of the lens having somewhat different focal
lengths. As the iris is stopped down the light goes through less of
the lens so the SA tends to disappear and the lens becomes sharper.
Kodak's portrait lenses of the mid 1950's were simply color
corrected doublets with lots of SA. In a way they were large versions
of the lenses used on box cameras (except for the color correction.
Wollensak made this type of lens but also made triplet types with a
movable element. Triplet lenses are very critical of element spacing
so its possible to make one which has a variable amount of softness
from SA. Because the iris also makes a difference this type of lens
can produce a wide range of soft focus effects and can also be quite
sharp when the movable element is in the right place.
Cooke and Taylor, Taylor, and Hobson also built variable triplet
soft focus lenses. In fact, Cooke has been investigating the possible
market for a modern version of their old lenses.
The Imagon is a little different. While it also uses zonal spherical
aberration for softness it adds to this a diaphragm with holes in the
periphery. This has the effect of allowing some light to go through
the edge of the lens, making is softer, and diffusing that light. So,
the Imagon has a combination of softness due to SA and due to
diffusionl. A similar lens is made by Fuji (I think it is).
Its also possibel to get soft focus effects by using diffusers of
various sorts. Nearly anyuthign which is partially transmitting can be
used. The traditional materials are silk or nylon stretched in front
of the lens but combinations can be used and a screen with a hole in
it can be used to get a core sharp image similar to a soft focus lens.
One can also use a filter with some Vaseline smeared on it like Bob
Guccione of Penthouse. Please don't smear it on the lens. :-)
Diffusers like the Zeiss unit use glass with a multiplicity of
little lenses in it. This produces a softness which is relatively
independant of the lenses f/stop.
Diffusers are very inexpensive to experiment with. You need a
holder, but that (like a lens shade) can be makshifted from cardboard.
After that you just try stuff, cloth, crumpled cellophane, whatever.
It is suprizing that many lenses can be made soft focus by using
only a part of them. If you remove the front element of a Tessar it
will still form an image but of curious quality. The design of the
Tessar is such that most of the power is in the rear, cemented,
component but most of the correction is in the front cell.
Diffusion in the camera spreads the highlights out, diffusion in
enalarging (from negatives) spreads out the shadows, a rather
different effect.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, Ca.
dick...@ix.netcom.com
Jay De Fehr
is of the uncorrected SA type, as I saw no slot for discs. This particular example
is of 14.5" focal length, which seems a little short for portraits in 8x10, is this
a 5x7 lens, or are shorter focal lengths somehow more acceptable in larger formats?
Thanks again for the clear and concise information.
Sincerely,
J. De Fehr
C. W. Dean
The 14.5" Verito was marketed as an 8x10 lens and its softness is
controlled with the iris, at about f-11 it gets pretty sharp. You've
got to remember that long focal length portrait lenses require a lot of
floor space and many studios were limited in depth so they had to
compromise with a somewhat shorter lens than the ideal. Their lens and
format had to be compatible with their working floor area.
Briggs was probably a local or regional merchant/jobber who bought
lenses from the big manufacturers and sold them imprinted with his own
trade name. The Briggs lens may work very well but its value is dubious
because of the obscure label.
--
Best regards & Good Photography!
C. W. Dean
Practicing Professional Photography since 1972
Photography Samples: http://www.erols.com/cwdean/home.htm
Jay De Fehr
J. DF