Soft Focus Lenses

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The Sima 100mm f/2 Soft Focus Macro is a push/pull focus design, made with a single element diopter. As seen here, the resulting photos have a glowing look to the highlighted area which is generally used in "still life" and "portraiture". It uses a T-mount to fit various bodies and cut out discs with holes of various size to control aperture. While difficult to find, they're a lot of fun and add variety to your shots. Other inexpensive soft focus lenses such as the Portragon f/4 can also be found.

The Portragon is an aluminum lens, and quiet small in design. I personally feel it's more usuable with "full frame" bodies, since it's soft area tends to be highly trimmed by small sensors. It also lacks aperture control, but uses a turning focus similar to standard lenses. Size comparison to an EF-S 18-55.

For more photos, visit my soft focus Pbase gallery.

Other soft focus lenses are also available, such as the Canon EF 135mm Soft Focus. The Canon has a variable soft control, and usual high quality build & auto functions of the EF series. They can also be found used at times, for very reasonable prices. Great lens if you want something with a little more substance. Other model SF lenses, including the Mamiya 150mm SF f/4 for their medium format RB-RZ67 cameras are still available. 

Lensbaby

Lensbabies are another fun lens. They also use a single element, and aperture discs. Their flexible bellows allows manipulating the "sweet spot" which is in focus. They have several new models to chose from and offer accessories, such as wide angle,  medium tele, and macro adapters.

As with other manual lens designs, you'll need to use aperture or manual settings. Auto exposure works in apeture priority.

All brand names are registered to their respective owners, and used for discussion purpose only.