Cornwall through a soft focus lens

Last week I went to Cornwall armed with just my K1 and the SMC 85mm SOFT (thanks Lennybloke), plus extension tubes. This 30 year old lens allows variable soft focus between F2.8 and f8.0 and for soft focus flowers I find the optimum is F4.5, whilst reducing the aperture below F8.0 results in nice sharp images like a normal lens. I also switched ISO from auto, which tends to be my default, to daylight for these and I must say the colour rendering is far better.

Rock beach looks great 👍 Doom Bar ( the beer ) is named after the patch of sand in the distance

That's a lovely set Rob - I never got the best out of that lens (I think my A*85 was more often the choice for the camera bag) but I do remember that when used at smaller than f8 it was a beautifully sharp lens.

I hear it said that soft focus effects can be added in post processing, but I'm not sure the beautifully soft halo-ing on that first shot and the fluffy backgrounds would be the same

Thanks LennyBloke, I have tried unsuccessfully to get the soft effect in Lightroom and Photoshop but then I am only a novice in the latter. I am sure if I worked at it then something approximating is possible but it would surely lack that special touch of being in focus but softened combined with the shallow depth of field, but using this lens it is just so much easier. As the aperture is set on the lens ring I can also see the effect through the viewfinder or in live view and adjust to suit. Autofocus works reasonably well through the viewfinder but not in live view, and focusing manually even with an extension tube still gets the focus confirmation. Conversely in Lightroom I can locally dehaze and add texture to the in-focus areas if I want a bit more definition which is pretty quick and straightforward.

Love that soft focus look, back in the day I had the Cokin soft focus filters, classic pre millennial look!

Last 2 for me