Softening techniques with the Fuji X-T1

I reserved this past week just to have some fun experimenting with a camera. One thing I played with was various techniques for softening images aiming for various degrees of an ethereal atmosphere and a painterly effect. I know it is easy just to buy something like a fog filter to put in front of the lens, but I have always found these to be too evenly diffused. I wanted something more variable, uneven, and controllable.

One thing I tried was using an older, uncoated lens on my X-T1.  Here I have an olde Meyer-Optik Gorliz 50mm f/2.8 Trioplan lens attached to the X-T1 using an Exacta to Fuji adapter. Uncoated optics are usually quite soft and low in contrast, but I wanted even more softening so I held a piece of multi-folded cellophane in front of the lens. 

I applies a variety of techniques including using the old Trioplan lens shown above. Sometimes I placed cellophane in front of a lens, often folding the cellophane to achieve even more softening. I shot though various pieces of glassware. Once in awhile with the lens in manual mode I would shoot it slightly out of focus. I also tried using motion blur by moving the camera during the exposure. 

Once the image was captured and brought into Photoshop I applied an old autochrome technique I once described here in a blog post. This added a multi-colored grain pattern to the overall images. 

To see the grain structure of these images, download a high res version of this photo here.

To see the grain structure of these images, download a high res version of this photo here.