Firts off, I'm down to maybe 10-15 sheets left of my old Polaroid 804 film, these sheets are at least 10yrs old and probably older since the date on the box this film came from has long since faded.  I'm so amazed that the old Polaroid film came through for this shot.   I'm probably done w/Polaroid 804 when I run out of what I have left since boxes of this film are going for an insane price of $300-$500 a box.   I've done a lot of crazy things in my life, but buying film in excess of $30.00 a sheet isn't going to be one of 'em.

This is called 'Ring' for obvious reasons,  this thing started out life as a candle holder which I thought was novel.   I love the curios/'doo dads'/nic nacs/novelties and all of the out of the way stuff I get from Michaels art store and some of the discount stores that come cheap at bet. 99cents and $2.00.

     This image is 'Contre Jour', French for 'backlight', yeah, it sounded better to me in French.  This is the last shot I've done with the SA and I think it reflects what this lens can do when the operator has gone a bit up the learning curve.   These are called 'portrait'  or  'soft focus' lenses  but depending on the lighting scheme you can change the character/intensity of whatever softness the lens conveys to a particular subject matter.

     I don't pretend to know every lighting scheme that will work w/this lens, I'm still scratching the surface w/F6, but in terms of me personally going forward w/this particular lens, I've gone forward w/the premise that frontal lighting results in halation everywhere.   I've stayed away from frontal lighting, and used primarily three-quarter/sidelight/backlight and mostly but not all the time, at about a stop in illumination below the stop marked on the lens.

    This lens flares out the light it sees, said another way, it does more w/less or at least that's the illusion.  With illumination coming from the side or back things are more contrasty and with less illumination, less halation.  You can control the halation(the intensity of the glow), and the character of the lens w/your illumination.    Check out my 'Goggles' shot here, there's strong halation on either end of the goggles, I liked it, and felt it did something for the shot, now coming back to this shot, there's just a smattering of light, and the character of the glow is much more subtle. 

    I layed a Prototo 7" reflector on its side on a middle grey matt board on top of a stool so the front and back ends ended up sagging down, so I could line up the lens down low where the lens was.   The matt board was sagging down and luckily for me it help force the perspective. 

    Illumination was by my strobes modeling ligh through a snoot which had a disc shaped grid inside to knock down the light and smooth it out so there was no harsh outline projected onto the matt board.  I metered the light pattern left on either side of the reflector with globe of my meter half in light, half in shadow giving me a reading of F4.  The lens was opened to F6 and the shutter time was roughly 4 seconds.   This is what has worked for me on several of these shots, knocking down the illumination, and/or using it smaller areas which is what this amounts to w/side or backlight, and increasing the shutter time.

     The Pinkham Smiths have a feel to the glow that cannot be fully described.  

     OMT, there was no frontal illumination used on this shot, all the light came from the snoot which above and behind the reflector, I adjusted the snoots light so that it came through the center hole of the reflector resulting in the photons you see bouncing around the dappled(or whatever you call it) reflector surfaces.  It was interesting how the reflector took light exclusively from behind and bounced it around in the patterns you see.

     Actually two more things, this lens focuses from the back forward, my focus point was the crescent shaped highlight at rear bottom central hole in the reflector, and the combination of eyeball focus and chemical focus carried forward to the front.   With of my other lenses particularly when doing a portrait, I'll select a point knowing the focus will carry mostly backwards, not so w/this lens.  

    I've still got a lot to learn, but I think I'm getting a handle on the focus.

    Take care

This is my last still life to date w/the Semi-Achromatic.  It's a long tall slender glass flower vase lying on its side on brushed aluminum.  I didn't set out for it to look like this but after setting up the shot, I looked through the groundglass and this is what I saw.  This was shot w/the SA wideopen @4.5. 

I called this shot 'Chemical Focus' because I focus on the rim of the glass closest to the camera, but more was in focus that what I saw on the groundglass. 

I gotta comment on what Steve Nichols said on one of the forums, I like what you said, and will say it here.  You inspired me to go out and get a Raptor w/your Raptor shot of the foundry.   I think these lenses do have a distinctive quality that can be exploited and expressed and they do have a definable 'personality'  when everything works right but it doesn't work out that way with  every single shot.  I think that's what some folks are missing, you can't just slap on the lens and have the lens put its personality stamp on whatever you're shooting just because you used that lens, you gotta make it work.

Same w/the Semi-Achromatic, I've shot quite a bit, including tests, you'd be surprised how much I've shot, but the shots I'm happy with from this lens you can count with the fingers on one hand.

Take care

This is a monochrome version of my first portrait w/the Semi-Achromatic.  It's entitled 'Tenebrism' for the painting term which suggests 'emerging from the darkness'.  I have my daughter Danielle looking up, and the lightsource coming down at an angle which seemed to give me the greatest amount of modeling and contour to her features.

I've found that my Profoto strobe 250 watt modeling lights in their light modifiers are perfect for the Semi-Achromatic for portraiture(so far) as the actual strobes are useless and their light so intense that  they simply blow everything out beyond recognition using this lens @F6.  This combination resulted in a shot w/out the signature glow that these lenses sometime exhibit.  As I've said before, these type lenses are different lenses depending on the light.

Take care

This is '3 Glasses', another shot of glass w/subdued/indirect lighting and no glow/halos around the highlights.   I've got another shot w/glass subject matter that will be uploaded in the near future, and that's it for the Semi-Achromatic and still life for awhile.   My next direction for this lens will be portraiture after I take a break from obsessing about this lens. 

'3 Glasses' was shot on my favorite surface, brushed aluminum, @F6 on Polaroid 804 film, and the best thing about this shot was it was the easiest shot to focus since I've started using the Semi-Achromatic.