The Lomography Petzval Portrait Lens

You gotta see this. Note the start date of the funding period. Zowie.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Josef: "Less than 24 hours and it's already pushing $400,000 (as of 6 p.m. Central Time).

"I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Seems like a lot of other people thought so, too. I bought one for myself this morning. It just happens to come along right when I am diving into a photo history book for the first time in a few years and find myself fascinated by some of the mid-19th century imagery."

Jim: "Oh, great. In a few months we'll see a billion photos on FB and Flickr shot with this thing. 'Art,' they'll call it."

Mike replies: Well, they might call some of it that. But you know, this might mark the first time we actually were able to see a visual fad coming before it arrived! Except insofar as Petzval Swirl is already a fad. We've written about it here on TOP, even.

Greg Roberts: "I saw that earlier today and was quite tempted, but in looking at the example photos taken with the first prototype lens I don't see the swirls I expect to see. I hope they are successful and get it right. In their examples they include images taken with a 5D with both an old Petzval and with the prototype lens, and to my eye they are not at all similar:

Canon 5D + old lens

Canon 5D + prototype lens

"I think they should have made a second prototype before launching their Kickstarter. I for one would have been a lot more tempted to join in if the examples were better. In any case, items like this put a smile on my face, and inspire me to be creative."

bill: "Maybe if they could get it to produce the Petzval look. Sorry, this is pretty lame to invest in right now. I would rather pay full price than get a discount on the hope they can pull it off. But good luck."

Wjcstp: "I love stuff like this, and given that even at their current nearly $600,000 they haven't sold much more than 1,000 lenses, it's unlikely the world will be saturated with Petzval photos. Unless Instagram emulates a filter for it, of course. It's too bad one of the stretch goals wasn't a nice-looking brass adapter for Micro 4/3 cameras. I'd hate to put such a nice lens on my nice Olympus Pen with an ugly, chunky adapter in the middle."

Michael Perini: "The LENS DADDY."

Comments

[Gene Forsythe]

Proving once again that nostalgia has a value that far exceeds practicality.

[Sal Santamaura]

Ugliest bokeh on the planet. Consistent with Lomo's essence. It'll probably sell.

[hugh crawford]

I was looking at that this morning.

"Obviously, the original Petzval lens was designed in order to work with the cameras manufactured in the 19th century. Most of these cameras were large-format analog cameras."

A little pricey compared to making one yourself or using an old slide projector lens , and their optical diagram is a bit misleading, but I like the waterhouse stops.

[David]

I can do that in photoshop with my eyes tied behind my ears!!!

looks cool plus I want that guy's yellow dress jacket.

[Stephen Gilbert]

"Image Circle: 44mm?"

[Sergey Botvin]

Zowie indeed...

[Ed]

?

Greets, Ed.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Before 1pm I see them all over google in the big photo blogs and gadget blogs, too. This suggests a considerable pre-launch publicity campaign to my eye.

Looks kind of cool. There seem to be a lot of images tagged "petzval" on Flickr, for those interested in more examples (and lots of photos of old Petzval lenses as well, including some large-format ones judging by the dimensions shown).

[Paul Marriner]

Truly astounding. 315K in less than a day, well, our day of course. Via the WWW, it's been a day more down under and, perhaps most importantly, Japan. It would be fascinating to see the geographical distribution of backers.

Paul

[Oskar Ojala]

Seems that there is a market for lenses that have distinct looks!

[Edward Taylor]

Seriously? Is this some kind of joke? The lens was known for its color saturation in 1840? They are adjusting the Bokeh? It looks like an expensive Lensbaby to me. Am I missing something?

[Henry Rogers]

It certainly looks interesting but I wonder whether the amount of use this lens might get is likely to persuade many people that it's worth paying for. Maybe I didn't read the ad carefully enough but will it cover a larger frame size than 35mm? And why only Nikon and Canon mounts on offer? Perhaps a T mount option might increase the potential market.

[David Bennett]

It says - "The new Lomography Petzval lens has great color saturation and..."

Any opinions on whether a lens can have 'great color saturation' ? [Yes, although it's usually called color transmission, and it wouldn't have been of much concern during the lifespans of the original Petzvals. --Mike]

I had an Agfa Super Silette and when taking portraits faces had a very three dimensional roundness around the side of the face and into the out-of-focus distance. I put that down to the lens arrangement.

Any thoughts on that?

[David Anderson]

First time I have ever tried a Kickstarter project, so here's hoping! I am hoping to use it with an adaptor on my Fuji X-Pro 1.

[William Barnett-Lewis]

I could go nuts about this except for the simple fact that my Tessars are much better all around lenses.

I'll stick to my f6.3 5x8 B&L from about 1912 and enjoy it while the lomo folks chase their tails some more.

And maybe, down the road when the hipsters get tired of them, I can find a used one to hang on my Nikon F2 for the rare occasion when it would be of use.

[Stan B.]

Such beautiful lenses- on such ugly digital cameras...

[Chuck Albertson]

If you get one, be sure to shhot against a plain background. That first photo in the article gave me motion sickness.

[Mathew Hargreaves]

Cool retro revival. What, no brass camera to go with it? Maybe a Lomo wood cased camera. So Mike, are you salivating for this to try it out on your box cameras? I think it is a fun revolution for digital and a reworking of the past glories of photography.

[g carvajal]

dumb.

[Ed]

Rather overpriced, and as Greg mentioned, the old one looks way better if you are into swirl. Bottom line, get a real vintage petzval if you want that look, or better yet, something like a 58mm or 75mm biotar or it's russian clones will be all around better choices, cheaper in some cases, mount on more cameras, etc.

[Jim Mooney]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't get the whole Petzval thing. I've tried to appreciate it. I've looked at hundreds of images taken with them but no dice. Horses for courses I guess.

[D. Hufford.]

Why wouldn't it be art? It says right there: "...it's a must-have lens for anyone looking to enhance their creative potential and turn every photo into a timeless artwork." EVERY photo. Plus, OMG, the boke! The boke!

[Andrea]

Nice, but...

CCTV 25mm f/1.4 lens:

Pride

Old Timer

25$ including s&h - prolly not enough "Lomo" and "Hipster", but oh well...

[Boys_ian]

To those wondering about the image circle, a 35mm full frame film/sensor needs an image circle of 43.26mm, so it's not like there's a lot of change from 44mm! Expect vignetting.

[Stuart Dootson]

Hmmm - for bokeh like that, I'd just use an old Helios lens - the 44M I got for $20 from eBay would do the job nicely...

[Steve Caddy]

Hang on a minute...

The new Petzval Lenses is designed and constructed by a team of optics specialists at the Zenit factory in Russia, together with Lomography. Zenit are master lens manufacturers and have the skill to build the Petzval lens for use with today’s SLR cameras. There are very few companies worldwide who still have enough knowledge of optics to complete a project such as this.

But then...

Shot with an old Petzval lens from the 19th century on a Canon 5D

Seems to work ok!

[cgw]

I'm in, provided I get some Brasso coupons with the lens.

[Jim in Denver]

My condolences to the backers - this kind of unforeseen demand can be deadly to a small company.

I sincerely hope that they can provide the product in some reasonable amount of time to the backers.

It's a great idea, and hopefully it will all come to pass with all parties happy.

If I were a betting man, however...

[Jessica Mironov]

Color me foolish, but I bit the bullet and bought one. At the very least, it may impress a few portrait clients with its looks. And maybe I'll sell my lensbaby doodads that are sitting around collecting dust to cover the cost . . . .

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I absolutely love the concept, but...

Is it me or the sample shots look just like a Jupiter-9 (85mm f/2) shot at full aperture?

[Greg Christie]

"The new Petzval Lenses is designed and constructed by a team of optics specialists at the Zenit factory in Russia"

but...

"Unfortunately however, pledgers from Brazil or Russia will have to pay an extra 100 USD for shipping the lens."

Logistical hubs apparently!

[Chad Thompson]

4 Elements in 3 Groups does not a Petzval make.

[Chad Thompson]

As an aside, I contacted Lensbaby to do this project about 2 years ago. They had no interest in it and didn't think it was a money maker. Time will tell if they were wrong.