Lensbaby, a company known for making unconventional lenses that create unusual photos, has announced the 50mm f/2.5 Soft Focus II optic, a new-and-improved version of one of the earliest members of the Optic Swap System. The original Soft Focus optic was launched about twelve years ago and quickly became one of the company’s most popular items until it was discontinued a few years ago. This new version improves upon its predecessor by adding a 12-blade manually adjustable internal aperture to the drop-in magnetic aperture system.

Lensbaby founder Craig Strong said of the new lens, ‘At darker apertures, this magical optic produces images with a vintage-lens feel and just a hint of glow. Then, with a turn of the aperture dial, a subtle creative effect grows into an explosion of dreamy glow around the highlights and shadows of my images. I love having the ability to quickly shift the look of my images to match my subject matter.’

The company says the new Soft Focus II has the vintage look of a Lomography art lens that produces a sharp underlying image with a silky soft velvety overlay across the whole image. The lens optic will create an impressionistic image with a color palette leaning towards a softer pastel when shot at its faster apertures. The center region becomes much sharper as you stop down, while the corners remain pretty soft, at least on full-frame cameras. The internal aperture is adjusted by turning the front of the optic. The new version of the lens still allows the choice of three creative magnetic disks (which can also serve as an aperture) that users can further enhance the soft effect created by the lens optic, but adds the ability to manually adjust the 12 blades from f/2.5 to f/22 without having to bother with removing and reinserting the magnetic disks.