The Dallmeyer-Bergheim soft focus lens is an absolute rarity made by Dallmeyer back in the 1890s. The Bergheim Soft Focus is a telephoto Soft Focus portrait lens conceived by the photographer and painter J.H. Bergheim. The lens is a long focus consisting of two uncorrected lens elements.
I have been looking for a quality copy of this lens since 2007, and I have yet to find one. I will continue to search, and hopefully, one day, I will find one. I have my friend Denis at wetplatedreams looking for one as well. Hopefully, some day, I will have one.
The Photographic Journal (30. November 1895) reports: ‘…has been constructed to supply a want frequently expressed by photographers who devote themselves to producing the highest rendering in portraiture.’
‘The type of definition given at full aperture is such that there is no loss of structure in the resulting image; all detail is given but softened to the extent that produces a harmonious whole without insisting on critical sharpness.’
Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin of 1896 states, “The Dallmeyer-Bergheim lens is composed of a single front lens of positive focus in combination with a single back lens of negative focus, the distance between the two being variable, thus giving considerable latitude of focal length. A softness and delicacy is obtainable with this lens that will please photographers. When stopped down, defining power and sharpness increase, this being absolute with about one-third the full aperture.”
As noted by Anthony, the lens offers a possibility to change the focal length. The No. 2 has a range of 25″ (640mm) up to 40″ (1000mm). The open aperture varies from F8 to F15, depending on the focal length.
It was listed in the historic catalogs to cover from 8×10 up to 12×15 formats. Looking at the image circle, I would say it will cover at least 14×17 also, maybe even more.
Denis from Wetplatedreams states “In the last ten years of working with antique lenses, this is only the second Dallmeyer Bergheim lens that i was able to obtain. That should show you, how scarce those are today”. Please see his photos of a No. 2 model that he had at one time before selling it.
History
The next lens after the Dallmeyer Portrait lens to be manufactured as a soft focus lens was the Dallmeyer-Bergheim lens, designed in 1893 and produced in 1896. Designed by John Dallmeyer’s son, Thomas, at the request of painter J.S. Bergheim, this lens was made to produce soft definition without losing the natural structure of the object being photographed. As a result, this lens utilized both spherical and chromatic aberrations to achieve the desired look. It was also touted as the first lens to bring about a uniform diffusion to the entire image.
Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin of 1896 states, “The Dallmeyer-Bergheim lens is composed of a single front lens of positive focus in combination with a single back lens of negative focus, the distance between the two being variable, thus giving considerable latitude of focal length. A softness and delicacy is obtainable with this lens that will please photographers. When stopped down, defining power and sharpness increase, this being absolute with about one-third the full aperture.”
Interestingly, this lens was telephoto in construction (with variable focal length), which made it even more applicable to portraiture – however, it was slow with maximum apertures in the range of f/8 to f/15 (depending on the focal length), and was quite massive in size and weight – both which limited its usability.
Despite some of its limitations, the lens was marketed for over 30 years and was updated in 1920 including a very light aluminum version ( #1 ) for reflex cameras.
Historic Catalogs
The Soft-Focus Lens & Anglo-American Pictorialism
William Russell Young, III wrote his doctoral dissertation “The Soft-Focus Lens and Anglo-American Pictorialism” in 2008 and submitted his thesis to the University of St. Andrews.
I have included some relevant paragraphs in the section below to help you understand this amazing lens’s history and context.
“There were a total of three variants: the original form, a revised type with shorter focal lengths (Figure 4.2) and a fixed focal length type. The original form was a large, heavy and unwieldy lens, designed and marketed specifically for portraiture; the size limited it to the large, heavy and unwieldy cameras built especially for use exclusively inside the bounds of the studio. This original form was 4 1⁄2 inches in diameter and produced any focal length from 36 to 60 inches. It was, however, slow for a studio lens, operating from f/9 at the shortest focal length to f/15 at the longest; by comparison, most lenses created for studio portraiture use operated at f/4.5, which required roughly one- quarter of the exposure of an f/9 lens). The architecture of the Dallmeyer-Bergheim caused significant constraints in its use (which will be discussed in detail in the chapter “The Practice of Soft Focus”). It was supplied with three Waterhouse stops but the user had to consult a table to find the effective aperture at a given separation of the elements, another inconvenience, both for the field and studio.
The lens itself was relatively simple in optical construction using only two glass elements but with a new dimension in lens design: variable separation between the elements. The front element was a single uncorrected positive element and the rear element was a single uncorrected negative element; by varying the distance between those elements, the focal length of the lens was altered significantly. This combination of uncorrected elements created a lens that was uncorrected both spherically and chromatically. The deliberate inclusion of these two aberrations would become the basis for all soft focus lenses that followed. Dallmeyer undoubtedly knew from his father that the spherical aberration in his 1866 design was a key concept for any future soft focus lens. As to the chromatic aberration, “Mr. Bergheim felt that the results given by the unachromatized lenses were such that the color fringes seemed to produce what was in his eyes a more painter-like effect.”36 This conclusion regarding chromatic aberration is in agreement with the thoughts of Hans Watzek at the same time period.
Bergheim immediately put the lens to use, exhibiting “Cinderella” in the 1894 RPS exhibit37 and perhaps it was here that Frederick Evans was first exposed to its possibilities in portraiture; it is certain that Evans was a devotee prior to 1900. Although portrayed by Newhall as the archetype of the “straight photographer,” Evans was a widely respected portraitist and in this subject matter and his late French landscapes (as contrasted to the English cathedrals) made full use of the Dallmeyer-Bergheim lens. Harker considered him “in the forefront of the portrait photographers of the time.”
Evans spoke of his reliance on the Dallmeyer-Bergheim in 1900: “A word as to the portraits I have ventured to hang here: all are by the Dallmeyer-Bergheim lens, except four of the smaller ones, which were done by a single landscape lens of large aperture. The quality of the image given by the Dallmeyer-Bergheim lens, when at its best focus, pleases my eye extremely, for its beautiful sense of modelling. There are no sharp lines anywhere and yet no sense of fuzziness: at close vision the image is of course distinctly unsatisfactory as regards pure definition: but at a proper distance there comes a delightfully real, living sense of modelling that is quite surprising and most grateful and acceptable to the eye. It has a painty effect (if I may be allowed the expression), a modelled line that is not approached by the work of any other lens within my acquaintance… Its difficulty in use and its slowness of speed will, of course, always prohibit it for general commercial use, but for the artistic worker it is an all but indispensable instrument.”
It is intriguing to speculate whether Day and Coburn saw this exhibition of Evans’ soft focus portraits when they were in England; they certainly could have examined the prints at leisure even if the exhibition itself was no longer hanging. Although Evans wielded the Dallmeyer-Bergheim with aplomb, it was not the optimal design for him being difficult to use and slow (a small aperture). The variation between visual and chemical focus (explored further in the following chapter, “The Practice of Soft Focus”) caused his results to be “accidental”; “the lens we want is one that will give any desired or necessary softness of the image at will, visible, for our choice, on the focussing screen…. I am still hoping to own one, and some day produce easily and certainly, instead of accidentally, the type of portrait I prefer…”40 Writing a few years afterward pictorialist author Arthur Hammond considered the Dallmeyer-Bergheim “out of the question for amateurs” because it rendered such a soft image and was designed for such a large plate size”.
You can read the complete text on pages 96 through 115. Young’s thesis is available in PDF format.