A blog about this most recent soft focus experiment is at my web site here.

Here's a teaser.........

     I changed the title, because the previous title was 'yucckkky' and stupid, so go ahead and 'wop' me, but the image deserved a better name.  I'm still dancing w/this lens, she won't let me go, so let the dance continue.  This is an 'itty bitty' glass curio, sitting on brushed aluminum, and I've leaned a 59 cent magnifier against it. 

      The shot speaks for itself, the bottle's on my favorite surface, brushed aluminum, which can be used both as a background and a rough mirror reflection of the subject matter.

      This lens is all about understated elegance.

       Take care

    Maybe my scanner didn't feel like putting out yesterday, because this image is a better scan.  Oh well, my scanner's almost as old as I am, and can't be expected to put out a max effort every day.  

    This is the Jim Galli modified Turner Reich on my Toyo AII, to get close enough I had to put on the 4 inch extension sleeve to give me the max 16 inches which I needed most of to get this.  Exposure was wide open(F6.8), shutter was 'one thousand and one'.

    Let me preface what I have to say by saying that the j-peg image you see here doesn't do justice to the actual print of this image which is much, much sharper, and has a greater sense of fidelity, but I've uploaded it anyway to give a flavor of this lenses pallette. 

    Jim Galli modified this lens, and I'm very pleased w/the resulting look, the lens has a tendency to make the highlights 'pop', and then transition abruptly/very quickly to deep, dark, 'velvet' like shadows.   The look is dramatic, and I get a sense of immediacy from the print of this image.  The lens doesn't have the greyish 'murky' kind of pallette of some soft focus/portrait  lenses, and the lens has some of the same nuances and values as the Cooke PS945 when the Cooke lens is stopped down somewhat.