[Mike Bokeh]

I just bought a K100D, and absolutely love the built in digital soft filter the camera has.

As most of you know, the filter has 3 grades. It reminds me of Tiffen's Soft FX filters. Not exactly the same effect, but close. I also love the fact that you can shoot the picture without any filtration, and add it later.

My favorite SF filters are either a Zeiss Softar, or Tiffen Soft FX, grades 2 or 3.

I still haven't used photoshop on my own, but a photographer at a workshop gave me a demo recently, and I was impressed.

So, do you still use SF filters, (which ones) or do you prefer/rely on photoshop and why?

Mike

[Andrew Faires]

I have some and used them with film a fair bit, but with digital, I stick with in-camera or photoshop filters simply because I can play with the amount of filtration or try it out and then discard the effect if it's not as good as I was hoping.

[stewart_photo]

I still use glass filters, primarily because I'm comfortable with the results. I also try to get any desired effects during exposure to reduce editing afterwards, which carries over to SF even where an option is built into the camera.

stewart

[Mike Bokeh]

OK, so it's tied now at 1 for glass, and 1 for Photoshop.

I still use glass, but I'm going to do a test soon between my Tiffen and Cokin filters, and the K100D's digital filter.

Again, there's a place for both techniques, but I did like K100d's filter right off the bat.

Mike

[asloman]

OK, so it's tied now at 1 for glass, and 1 for Photoshop.

I still use glass, but I'm going to do a test soon between my Tiffen and Cokin filters, and the K100D's digital filter.

Again, there's a place for both techniques, but I did like K100d's filter right off the bat.

Mike

When you use a glass filter over the lens you get a soft focus effect. (Nice bockeh)
When you use Photoshop, you get a blur. Photoshop does not recognize the difference between a white shirt, and a bright light, so you do not get the natural looking glare that you get with a glass filter. For example, the light coming through the leaves of a tree. I believe that there are plugins for Photoshop that attempt to simulate real out of focus effects.

[Matjazz]

Like asloman said, software dowesn't know how bright was a pixel with 255/255/255 RGB value in reality and can't create halo with proper magnitude.

[Mike Bokeh]

When you use a glass filter over the lens you get a soft focus effect. (Nice bockeh)
When you use Photoshop, you get a blur. Photoshop does not recognize the difference between a white shirt, and a bright light, so you do not get the natural looking glare that you get with a glass filter. For example, the light coming through the leaves of a tree. I believe that there are plugins for Photoshop that attempt to simulate real out of focus effects.

Ah, this is a very good point, and something I hadn't even thought about. Thanks, asloman.

I'll have to do a complete test with all my soft-focus filters, and the in camera's digital filter and see what I like best.

As mentioned earlier, my favorite filters, in no particular order of preference are:

1.) Carl Zeiss Softar 2 or 3
2.) Tiffen Soft F/X 2 or 3. Either the regular or the warm version. The warm will give you creamy-smooth skin tones.
3.) Cokin Pastel filter #087. This filter is more like a heavy diffusuon filter, but mutes colors nicely. Think Robert Farber or David Hamilton. The flatter the lighting, the better the results with this filter, in my opinion.

The next two are not SF filters, but actual lenses:

The Sima Soft-Focus Lens. I don't know how many of you remember this odd, little gem from the 1980s, but I bought one. It cost about $35 at the time.

A 100mm simple plastic lens with one plastic, uncorrected element, with a fixed aperture of f2. It came with 3 extra Waterhouse disks (f4, f5.6 and neutral density) which were changed by unscrewing a ring on the front of the barrel. It gave images which I'd describe as halfway between photographs and watercolor paintings. Here are some very good examples: Sima 100mm Soft Focus Lens Photo Gallery by Yu-Lin Chan at pbase.com (This guy's stuff is good! )

I found that you couldn't rely on the in-camera meter with this lens, and had to overexpose by 2 stops with a handheld meter to get a correctly exposed image.

The Spiratone Portragon Lens.

Yes, I also bought one of these. This lens cost about $40.

Again, a simple, one element lens, only this time made of glass in a metal barrel with a fixed aperture of f4.

It had a clear center, which rapidly fell off to a blur at the edges. I was never really crazy about this lens, as you had to have the subject almost centered in the frame with too much space above their head. If you didn't do this, the eyes could fall into the lens' blur zone.

Thanks to all who replied, and if you have any more ideas or comments, please keep them coming.

Mike

[tranq78]

Pentax makes some excellent soft lenses. The latest ones are the FA85/2.8 soft and the FA28/2.8 soft (I own both). These are multi-element lenses that let you dial in the degree of softness, from softest at 2.8 to completely normal by f11. Very cool lenses. More details and discussion can be found at Boz's and Stan's sites below...

Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Equipment Page

Stan's Pentax Photography

[Mike Bokeh]

Pentax makes some excellent soft lenses. The latest ones are the FA85/2.8 soft and the FA28/2.8 soft (I own both). These are multi-element lenses that let you dial in the degree of softness, from softest at 2.8 to completely normal by f11. Very cool lenses. More details and discussion can be found at Boz's and Stan's sites below...

Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Equipment Page

Stan's Pentax Photography

Tranq78, I went to the 2 sites you posted, but only browsed through them quickly.

I will go through them thoroughly later when I have more time, but they did seem to have a lot of info in them.

Thanks a lot for posting them.

Mike

[Mike Bokeh]

Hi, everyone.

I did a test, not between the K100D's in camera digital filter and glass filters, but just an unfiltered shot of my friend's boat, and all 3 grades of the K100D's digital filter.

From top to bottom, they are: No filter, #1, #2 and #3.

I kind of like the look of #3. I could get used to this.

What do you think?

By the way, the shot was taken at dusk.






Mike

[lapeen]

I kinda like #2, #3 makes my eyes feel 'strained.'

But honestly I like #1 the best.

[J.Scott]

The last few have a dreamy, surreal look to them, however, my tiny brain finds it easier to look at the first picture as opposed to the last one. Fuzzy, soft pictures are okay for pinhole cameras but that's about it - IMHO.

[Bonfa]

Generally I shot with neutral parameters and leave every edit in photoshop session.

[Mike Bokeh]

OK, folks, I did a quick soft-focus filter versus the in-camera digital soft filter of the K100D.

I took a reference photo with no filter, then copied it using the 3 grades of soft filter in the K100D, then used the other soft filters I had lying around.

All shots were taken using the Pentax 50-200 set at 63mm @ f5.6 @ 1/45 second.

So, for your perusal and inspection:

#1. No filter.

#2. Same photo as #1 with in-camera digital soft filter 1.

#3. Digital soft filter 2.

#4. Digital soft filter 3.

#5. Tiffen #1 diffusion.

#6. Tiffen Soft F/X #2.

#7. Tiffen Black Pro Mist #2.

#8. Cokin Pastel #2. (Cokin filter 087)

#9. Tiffen Sofnet Skintone #2.

#10. Tiffen Warm Soft F/X #3.

#11. Tiffen Warm Soft F/X #5.


I like #2 and #3 for the digital filter; #4 is a little too mushy for me.

My favorite was #10 - the Tiffen Warm Soft F/X #3.

All the others were so-so. I liked #9 the least.

So, which ones did you like, and why?

Mike

P.S. I know I could have made the background darker had I shot @ 1/60 or 1/90 second, but I was in a bit of a hurry, and just wanted to get the test done. Those white lines at the bottom of the frames are sunlight coming in through the slits in the blinds and again, I was in too much of a rush to correct them.

[stewart_photo]

I'm not sure the highly specialized Tiffen filters are best for this application. For example, the Soft F/X, Warm Soft F/X, and Sofnet Skintone filters are primarily designed for people (portraits, etc), not guitars. The Black Pro-Mist filter is a step in the right direction, but I personally wouldn't use it for this. In fact, I probably wouldn't use any Tiffen filter, or any distortion filter at all, for this subject. But, if I absolutely had to use a filter, a very mild blur filter, or even the camera's built-in digital filter at it's lowest setting, would likely be the better choice.

stewart