Blur Technique?

[ray_g]

I was browsing through B&W's 2006 Portfolio Contest Awards special issue today (congratulations, Simon 🙂 ), and came across this photographer's interesting portfolio.

Does anyone know how this 'blur' is achieved? Is it all photoshop?

 

[stet]

Interesting work. Usually you see blurs like this in the center, like with a Lensbaby or a flipped-lens Brownie Hawkeye, but I like how she places it in different areas.

It says this in her project statement:

What was most challenging about this project was finding a way to express these dreamlike visions entirely in-camera, rather than with post processing manipulations. To this end, I created a stable of homemade, plastic lenses and mounted them on cameras that were either one hundred percent homemade or vintage cameras that were completely modified from inside out. These cameras tend to leak like sieves and offer nothing more than a few shutter speeds and one f-stop. Learning to overcome the extensive limitations of these homemade devices proved to be a dual motivation for this project, since instinct and intuition are key elements for using these visual tools, just as they are when attempting to understand dreams.

 

[ray_g]

You're right. I came across herblog as well.

 

[eric]

I was browsing through B&W's 2006 Portfolio Contest Awards special issue today (congratulations, Simon 🙂 ), and came across this photographer's interesting portfolio.

Does anyone know how this 'blur' is achieved? Is it all photoshop?

She uses a lot of HOlgas. How do I know? I have an original print from her.

 

[stet]

whoops, I meant that usually only the center is in focus, with the blur emanating outward, but she can place it in other parts of the frame.

She uses a lot of HOlgas. How do I know? I have an original print from her.

Do you know if/how she mods her Holgas? Might be fun to so something similar and play around with the lens on a cheap thrft store P&S.

 

[jan normandale]

One photographer I admire places a cheap N/D filter over his lens, then he applies generous amounts of vaseline to the filter to achieve effects like these.

 

[eric]

Do you know if/how she mods her Holgas? Might be fun to so something similar and play around with the lens on a cheap thrft store P&S.

She uses a combination of macro filters (1x, 2x, 3x). The thing with using Holga lenses on 35mm is kinda...pointless. The edge effect is what you want. The center is in focus. Using the lens on a 35mm will mean, most of the focus part covers the entire 35mm film area.
Just get a Holga...get a few cause you will want to carry color and b&w at the same time.

 

[stet]

She uses a combination of macro filters (1x, 2x, 3x). The thing with using Holga lenses on 35mm is kinda...pointless. The edge effect is what you want. The center is in focus. Using the lens on a 35mm will mean, most of the focus part covers the entire 35mm film area.
Just get a Holga...get a few cause you will want to carry color and b&w at the same time.

Oh, OK. I was thinking that she might be physically modifying/damaging her lenses to do this. Or, like Jan said, smearing Vaseline on it. (yuck. Although, maybe Socke does this now 😀 ) I was actually considering doing this with a cheap P&S, not taking a Holga lens to 35mm.

I have Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash with the lens reversed to get a similar blur effect, but the focus is only in the center. No vignetting, but a pretty wild bokeh. Way, way cheaper too. I can't step into the real toy camera game because I need all the money I got for the RF/dSLR gear. 🙂

I have a few from the flipped Brownie up on flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/stet/tags/browniehawkeyeflash/

 

[jan normandale]

@ stet.... "for the RF/dSLR gear."

hmmm... dSLR?? When did this happen??

 

[stet]

eesh. A few months ago. Basically, just before the monsoon season started, too, so a shiny new D200 has been riding pine most of the time. I went in on it halfsies with my girlfriend, who already had lenses to go with her F3 (with motordrive - she's diesel like that!).

 

[Dougg]

Her blurring has a lot of "character" to it and I suppose some swirly uneven application of vaseline to a UV filter can be interesting, but real lens abberations should be "better" I'd think. Some lenses have been designed for a variable amount of abberation effect... I think someone mentioned a LF Rodenstock lens with a seive-like insert. And other manufacturers made variable "soft" lenses in 35mm and MF or both; here's a couple of examples (120mm Pentax Soft at about f/5.6).

 

[ray_g]

whoops, I meant that usually only the center is in focus, with the blur emanating outward, but she can place it in other parts of the frame.



Do you know if/how she mods her Holgas? Might be fun to so something similar and play around with the lens on a cheap thrft store P&S.

In her blog, she describes using, in addition to Holgas, a Diana with a home-made plastic tilt-shift lens.

 

[Pherdinand]

I bet she's just shooting through pantyhose.
I mean one that she's not wearing, of course.
I mean not wearing, while shooting thorugh it.

 

[bobomoon]

I bet she's just shooting through pantyhose.
I mean one that she's not wearing, of course.
I mean not wearing, while shooting thorugh it.

Fishnets can be good too, I hear.

Y'all probably heard of the homemade/hacked toilet plunger tilt-shift lens but here's the link just in case:

http://www.dennisonbertram.com/hackmaster/2005/02/tilt-shift-pc-lens.htm

 

[Pherdinand]

I would try to construct such a lens, but the poroblem is, i can't flush my toilet with a camera.