Getting a Glow On

A regular reader of FITK should be aware that all the images here (unless otherwise credited) spring from the fertile (as in “spread with manure”) imagination of your humble/brag host, Professor Batty. I enjoy using ‘esoteric’ techniques from time to time, and many a blurry picture has graced these pages. I have a few home-made camera lenses, cobbled together from my photo junk drawers. The latest ‘refinement’ of this series is a Pentax 50mm f1.7 lens from the seventies. I removed all 7 of the glass elements and replaced them with three  oddball ones, thus creating a lens that functions in the same manner as it did originally (focus and aperture), but it is now capable of adding a pleasant glow to images - like the guitar pictured above.

Here are some more examples:







I described my technique on a photo forum and was immediately assailed for “destroying“ a “classic” optic, even though there are probably a million of these in closets around the world, never used. They sell for $5-$50, I think the world of photography could use a little variety now and then.

Three lenses that are not "glowers":