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Anonymous08/22/25, 06:47No.4461621
How was that softness of 1980s centerfolds shot on Ektachrome achieved? Was it lens itself or was dude using some filters on his large format camera?
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Anon08/22/25, 06:51No.4461622
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Anon08/22/25, 07:48No.4461630
You can use a soft focus lens, or if your system doesn't offer one you can just use a filter with Vaseline or something smeared on it. There are filters like soft focus filters, white mist filters and diffusion filters that can achieve similar effects too, thought I can't say how common they were. I think mist filters are a relatively modern fad.
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Anon08/22/25, 08:43No.4461640
Looks like a filter to me.
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Anon08/22/25, 09:35No.4461646
Is play boy still alive?
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Anon08/22/25, 09:49No.4461654
It was the lens itself.Back in the day this softness was seen as a flaw. People would have thought you were crazy using vaseline or a mist filter. Even the pantyhose thing is more of an internet legend than actually real: Maybe someone did it in the 40s but actually really popular it became only in 2010 or so
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Anon08/22/25, 14:30No.4461702
It was the lens and I have two of them, Nikkor 135/2 DC and Mamiya 150/4 SF. The Mamiya does it with drop in filters you have to unscrew the top half of the lens and manually place the filters in. Large format lenses that do this work the same way.The Nikkor has a defocus control where you turn a ring manually and it does more-or-less the same thing but in a different method.
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Anon08/22/25, 15:31No.4461726
so what kind of pantyhose should I get for this
the black ones or the skin tone ones
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Anon08/23/25, 13:42No.4462040
could a be a filter like the zeiss softar
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Anon08/24/25, 06:10No.4462178
My Dad did these, pinups, glamour & erotica in the 70s & 80s. That photo in your post is from the 90s. The way they did them until digital was to shoot it tack sharp, then do a huge enlargement, then airbrush that, then rephotograph that. That’s why it was called airbrushing before photoshop, it was literally done by an airbrush artist. 70s also used soft focus rather a lot in concert with short dof but that went out of style with the disco era, about ‘79.
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Anon08/24/25, 13:34No.4462225
Canon 135mm Soft Focus lens, it has a very distinctive look to it.
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Anon08/24/25, 14:56No.4462239
I fucking hate each and every one of you. This isn't a thread discussing the softness of a photograph taken in the 80s — this is a prime example of everyone wanting to be right, without the actual brain cells needed to BE right.
OP asked how the softness was achieved but nobody itt is able to provide any evidence for their claims
>inb4 sauce beggar
At least have the fucking decency to say "I think" or "As far as I'm aware", not just blindly spilling dogshit from your mouth like it's concrete gospel.
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Anon08/24/25, 18:14No.4462303
I use a cheap mist filter, not quite the same but similar
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Anon08/25/25, 10:14No.4462472
They were airbrushed, as were anything serious and professional print back in the day, but that doesn't answer the question of the achieving the softness
Besides regular film halation, medium format size, and old glass, they intentionally used soft focus filters like Harrison & Harrison
They still exist today, like the Tiffen Black Pro-Mist
I think they used the Tiffen Soft FX in the late '00s/early 2010s
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Anon08/26/25, 06:26No.4462716
I was reading a book that covered this. I forget the title but it was something like photography for advertising, 1985. They discussed using soft focus/diffusion filters for portraiture to create a pleasing effect especially on portraits of women. The authors also talked about using even stronger filters than would normally be used for portraits to have an even stronger softening effect.But maybe they did something else in that photo.
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Anon08/27/25, 02:26No.4463005
Very dreamy effect, I can see where someone might want the lens instead trying to simulate it later
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Anon08/28/25, 22:51No.4463584
I'm gonna go out on a limb here but isn't it just the development/scanning process? Whenever I see photos from the 70's compared to photos from today on the same exact systems/lenses/filmstock they're completely different to the point where the the older photos look like they came off a disposable
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Anon09/01/25, 14:18No.4464566
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Anon09/06/25, 08:46No.4465908
So, soft lens after all.
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Anon09/21/25, 01:41No.4469481
i don't know about soft focus, they're definitely sharp enough to capture fine peach fuzz
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Anon09/21/25, 01:43No.4469483
crop from larger copy of op image
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Anon09/21/25, 17:41No.4469634
>thread asking about Playboy centerfolds techniques
>suddenly pictures of barely dressed brown-skinned individualFuck, the Indians found /p/.
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Anon09/22/25, 12:51No.4469784
om-system f.zuiko auto-s 50mm f1.8
