Tachyon Brush

A diffusion filter, often used by photographers to get soft lighting effects, costs a lot of money. Here is something different that you can try and get similar resumts (YMMV):

Just stretch a pantyhose in front of the lens and secure it with a pair of rubberbands. If the lighing is not as soft as you want, just experiment with the tautness, till you get the right lighting level.

Voila, now you have an easy to use,cost effective diffusion filter replacement.