>>4466146I don't think it is just the aperture plates that gives the effect. The imagon lens is a single compound element design.
The cooke soft focus lens is a 3 element and it overlays spherical aberration onto the sharp image by moving the middle element more or less out of alignment.
You may be able to play with image softness by unscrewing the rear or front element on one of your lenses halfway or whatevet and then stopping it down more or less to control the softness, but I don't think that would really give the same effect. Never tried anything like that.
