kris10
March 11th, 2005, 01:17 AM
Just wondering if anyone is familiar with this type of soft focus filter? I am thinking about trying to get one to take pictures of my sister in laws new baby when he is born....Looking around at Freestyle Photo.com....
I think I found a good Sigma telephoto 70-300mm and a circular polarizer. Those two things will knock 2 of the maybe 20 item wish list I currently have running and the soft focus is just another thing I hadn't added to my list that I thought of today...;).
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=&pid=5000
kixphotography
March 14th, 2005, 09:55 AM
Have you ordered from Freestyle before? Just wondering how they were.
I have a soft focus filter. It's alright, not my most favorite gadget. It's not something I use a lot. Often I can get similar effect just by manual focusing.
Dolphinraver
March 14th, 2005, 12:37 PM
I don't know anything about this filter but my sister has ordered from them and had a great experience from them.
Angela
drlynn
March 15th, 2005, 01:55 AM
Heather, you might want to try a couple of things before you spend a lot of money on a soft focus filter.
1. a swatch of black or tan sheer nylon, like from pantyhose, stretched over your lens gives a pretty good soft-focus effect.
2. If you have a skylight filter you aren't using you can spray a thin film of hairspray over it. It might take several coats to get the amount of diffusion you want, but you could have a lot of fun one day experimenting. ;)
3. The soft focus thing can be done in camera, as kix suggested, but it takes some practice to make it not look just blury.
4. You can also simulate soft focus in photoshop, psp, etc. by making a duplicate layer, applying a gaussian blur to this layer, lowering the opacity, and masking out the eyes so that they stay in sharp focus.
Hope some of that helps. :D
kris10
March 15th, 2005, 02:10 AM
Wow, thanks Drlynn. That sounds great. I want to try the pantyhose thing first. That sounds the easiest. I may use this with my soon to be new nephew. I wonder if sheer white would be a good one too use for infant shots where I want a soft lighter focus. Does the tan make it look lighter too like you see in infant photo's or is that just choice of background color?
