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

Some of you will be shocked by what this lens did to this image.  Well............ Jim Galli won't be shocked, because he knows which lens it is, hopefully he'll stay 'mum' until everybody guesses.  Which lens it it???   I give you some hints:  It isn't a Pinkham & Smith, not a Verito, not a Universal Heliar, not a Taylor-Hobson-Cooke 'knuckler'.

Besides me, Jim Galli has one, Steve Nichols has one, and the lens is very common, very cheap,  a different brand of the same lens formula as this lens usually sells for up to TEN TIMES what this lens sells for. 

I took this shot w/the lens slightly modified, a modification I did a number of years ago when I first got this lens which was my first 'Classic Lens', and they've talked of this modification on the other forums as if it were a new discovery, 'ah well', so be it.

I uploaded this image to show that this lens under certain conditions/lighting set-ups, can rival anything the Pinkhams and all the other high priced classics can do.  It would be the first lens I'd recommend for someone starting out w/classic lenses, which as everybody here knows have a learning curve.  

After doing the shot '3 Glasses' w/my P&S Semi-Achromatic, I left the light set-up in place, and placed 3 shot glasses(shot glasses for measuring out alcohol for mixed drinks) on the brushed aluminum, and changed to this lens.  I was both pleasantly surprised and but also shocked at what I saw on the groundglass which is what you see here.

I'm sure you folks will guess the answer fairly quickly, and hopefully, folks who peruse this from outside the site, will be intrigued by, and find renewed interest in this lens. 

Take care

I've been 'feelin it' lately, fever, the shots on this sight, the lens, everything has has got me 'goin'.   I'm lovin it, sharing images w/everybody on this site, folks who shoot like you do, w/the same kinda lenses you like.

 I called this shot 'MicroVase', cuz I didn't know what else to call it.  It IS definitely the world's most 'itty bitty' flower vase, if that's in fact what it is.  I worked on indirect lighting and brushed aluminum @F6 to see if I could come up w/something w/this kind of lighting w/o a glow.  

The texture and tone is from the lens and the Polaroid.

Take care

Hi Folks

I was in a discount store w/my boy when I saw this thing, and when I got to the checkstand, the lady ringing me up picks up this thing, starts tossing it up and down and asks me what it is.  I say truthfully 'hell if I know', and another lady next to me gets into the conversation with, 'hey, it's the mystery ball', and we all have a chuckle and I tell her that's what I'll call it.  So even though the working title of the pic is 'Metal Sphere', it's really the 'Mystery Ball' after the shot.

 This is an object that I thought would allow me to shoot the Series III wideopen @ F4.5 and so I've included 2 versions @F4.5 and F6.  Opening all the way up to F4.5 to shoot anything in extremely bright light would've spread the glow throughout the frame, blowing out everything, as opposed to what you see here in pretty subdued light. 

The sphere is sitting on brushed alluminum.  Pick 'em.

Have a good one.

Hi Folks

 I'd picked up one of the most interestingly shaped glass curios I've seen, and of course I had to shoot it.  This is the shot, and I named the it 'T', for triangle.   The glass was reflecting some fairly intense highlights(for this lens), so I closed down the lens to bet. F6-F8.  The makers of this lens were I believe possibly trying to tell us something by the way the F-stops are engraved on the lens,  it's  engraved F4.5.........F5...........F6.........Then F8.  

So far in my very limited experience w/the the Ser. III, F6 has in fact, seemed a 'sweet spot' for me,  so maybe the other marks are 'benchmarks' as far as what starts and what trails off at these stops.   I'm sure I'm going to find out.

I shot this w/a very old Polaroid, and it still turned out despite being from a box that's about 6 yrs old. 

I angled this thing at a fairly sharp angle toward the lens and the Ser. III reacted by rendering the front of it w/a still fairly crisp image over a soft one, and then merging the back end into PURE SMOKE. 

I loaded up this image in my office w/the lights out last night, it looks too dark now when compared to the original Polaroid this morning so I've taken the time to match the jpeg to exactly what the Polaroid looks like and reloaded.  Nothing else has been done to the shot.