Curious optical find

[Orio]

I have found that if you hold a rangefinder lens in front of a reflex camera, whose opening is larger than the diameter of the lens, therefore allowing for a part of light to enter the camera from outside the lens, what you get is some sort of glamour effect - the lens contributing the focused part and the "outside" contributing the "haze":



The above is obtained with a Jupiter-8M rangefinder lens held in front of my 5D.

Note how smooth the soft focus effect - much better in my opinion than with filters or postprocessing.

[Abbazz]

Interesting find, Orio, it looks very promising. Your picture is really nice, thanks for sharing. Too bad this trick allows macro focusing only, because it would be great for "Holywood portraiture". Maybe you could replicate the effect with an SLR lens designed for a mount with a much larger registration distance than your Canon EOS 5D. By holding the lens a few millimeters from the camera mount, there should be enough stray light coming in to soften the picture.

Cheers!

Abbazz

[Orio]

yes, macro only with rangefinder lens.

But like you say, one can also try with reflex lenses.

I already made photos handling reflex lenses in front of camera, to obtain lensbaby-like effect, but always caring to make sure that no light entered camera outside of lens.

[ChrisLilley]

[LucisPictor]

That's a nice find, Orio and a great idea, Chris!
Acually, just holding an Industar-50-2 in front of the Canon EF bayonet should do the trick as well, shouldn't it?