New Old New Lens

Logic eludes me—I honestly don't know if this is a new old new lens, a new new old lens, or a new old new old lens, or what.

I've been having fun with the hairshirt Exakta 66 I wrote about a week or two back. Life has definitely interfered recently, but I managed to get some 120 Ilford XP2 and have been happily shooting it, using the iPhone as a light meter. It's a bit strange the way muscle memory is coming into play—I used this camera intensively back in the '80s, carrying it with me all day every day, and the feeling of familiarity is curiously strong.

Seller's photo

And now I've gotten a new lens for it. Or a new new old lens, or whatever it is. It's an Ivanichek Petzvar 120mm ƒ/3.8, and it's a modern reincarnation of an antique lens type called a Petzval. The new version of the old lens came into being as a successful Kickstarter project from a guy named Denys (or Dennis) Ivanichek, who reproduced the classic four-element Petzval as a new product in several different lensmounts—including the Pentacon Six "P6" breechlock mount that fits my Exacta 66.

Denys's newest Kickstarter is for the lens in Hasselblad 500-series leaf-shutter mount. The Kickstarter campaign has already greatly exceeded its goal.

The Petzval, sometimes nicknamed the "swirly bokeh monster" for its peculiar "swirly" out-of-focus characteristics at open apertures, has had quite a resurgence of late—there are several modern versions of it available, including, most notably, a 58mm and an 85mm from Lomography. This after the original antique Petzval lenses for view cameras got scarce (or, I should say, even scarcer than they already were) due to demand.

The Petzval Objektif dates way back to 1840, when it was developed by a Viennese math professor named Josef Maximilian Petzval, with some help from Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer's eponymous optical and cameramaking company, which also produced the first commercial Petzval objective. Not to be confused with the modern Japanese Voigtländer company owned by Cosina, which licenses the old name. The original company, which began in 1756, went defunct in 1972, when the rights to the old name was acquired by its Braunschweig neighbor Rollei. Not surprisingly, the Petzval objective was originally famous because it represented a high-speed design at the time.

I'm not generally a fan of special-effects lenses, but neither am I necessarily a fan of high-resolution lenses for portraiture. The latter is a look, and the look is popular right now, but I don't care for it, mostly. I'm a sucker for history, though, and it will be fun to experiment with the Petzvar to see if I can find an aperture I like (the effects tend to be aperture-dependent). It's more the subtle soft-focus (or let's call it "not high resolution") effect that I'm after, rather than the extravagant bokeh.

You'll probably be hearing more from me in the future about this particular rabbit-hole. In the meantime, check out Dennis Ivanichek's Kickstarter page for more about this ancient lens design.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Swirly and maybe a little squirrelly
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Featured Comments from:

Cliff: "Back in the early '80s I worked for a local small town photo studio. The owner had some small renown in the VPPA for his exquisite portraits, women in particular. One of his 'secrets' was an old brass bodied Petzval lens. I printed hundreds of portraits from that lens (not easy to focus small prints from big negatives shot with that lens). One of the things I noticed about the softness of the lens is that unlike modern soft focus lenses, which seem to add flare and bleed the highlights into other areas of the image, the Petzval seemed to blend the shadows into the rest of the image. It always seemed to add a sense of mystery to the portraits. I hope your lens does the same for you, and I'd love to see some low key portraits shot with it. It was beautiful in color work and absolutely ethereal in black and white."

Moose: I seem to have inadvertently stumbled across a 'swirly bokeh monster' for Micro 4/3:

"I have ambivalent feelings about swirly bokeh images. Some are quite attractive, but, like anything hot, it's been overdone—'if swirl is good here, with this subject, it's good for everything.'

"All the 'officially' swirly lenses are designed for FF or larger film/sensor sizes. For good or ill, much of the effect is lost on crop sensors. They are also rather long focal lengths for smaller sensors.

"Although bought with other ideas, this no-name CCTV 25mm ƒ/1.4 lens swirls with the best when wide open. That does require an ND filter in direct sun [try searching 'Cokin 30mm ND8 neutral density' on eBay —Ed.]. Best of all is the price. Rather than trolling for myself, I bought a Fotasy package from of lens and C-mount to Micro 4/3 adapter for the princely sum of $28, with Prime free two-day shipping and no tax. [It's now $31.99. —Ed.]

"Swirl away, Micro Four-Thirders!"

Antony Shepherd: "I've got a 25mm CCTV lens and C-mount to Micro 4/3 adapter which I picked up years ago. Had a couple of friends tell me they couldn't look at those pictures because the swirly effect makes them feel sick!"

Comments

[Joe]

"using the iPhone as a light meter..."

Oh, could you elaborate? Have you talked about this before? If so, I missed it.

When I borrowed my uncle's Leica M3 a few years ago, I carried my DLSR with me to act as a light meter. Worked fine. But the iPhone. That would be a tad lighter...

[Peter]

Are you going to develop and print the film yourself?

[No. XP2 is a C-41 process film, so it's not what I would shoot if I were doing the developing myself; and I gave up my darkroom when I left Wisconsin. --Mike]

[Moose]

I seem to have inadvertently stumbled across a Bokeh Monster for µ4/3.

I have ambivalent feelings about swirly bokeh images. Some are quite attractive, but, like anything hot, it's been overdone - "If swirl is good here, with this subject, it's good for everything."

All the "officially" swirly lenses are designed for FF or larger film/sensor sizes. For good or ill, much of the effect is lost on crop sensors. They are also rather long focal lengths for smaller sensors.

Although bought with other ideas, this no name CCTV 25/1.4 lens swirls with the best when wide open. That does require an ND filter in direct sun.

Best of all is the price. Rather than trolling for myself, I bought a Fotasy package from of lens and C-mount to µ4/3 adapter for the princely sum of $28, with Prime free 2 day shipping and no tax.

Swirl away, MFTers!

[Istvan Huisz (AFIAP photographer)]

About "PETZVAL" (hungarian scientist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Petzval

"Petzval is considered to be one of the main founders of geometrical optics, modern photography and cinematography. Among his inventions are the Petzval portrait lens and opera glasses, both still in common use today. He is also credited with the discovery of the Laplace transform and is also known for his extensive work on aberration in optical systems."

[Mark Sampson]

Lenses... Zeiss made a 180/2.8 Sonnar in the Pentacon mount. It had a legendary reputation (although I've never used one). Perhaps you'd find it useful for portraits?

[hugh crawford]

Lots of projector lenses are Petzval design, since no one cares about the out of focus image in projector lenses and the Petzval design withstands heat well.

There are a lot of iphone lightmeter apps, I use one called lightmeter, I think it was the first one to come out. It has a very accurate spot meter, gives you a gps record, lots of other features.

[Reid Urquhart]

The quote from Wikipedia is wrong. The Laplace transform was discovered by Pierre Simon Laplace, a French mathematician. If it had been discovered by Petzval no doubt it would have been called the Petzval transform!

[Doug Chadwick]

You can get much the same effect by turning around the front and back elements of an Artar, and get this effect on 8x10 film, or larger or smaller. I bought one in that shape from a normally reputable dealer back in the 1990s. A 19" lens I think. And maybe a 24" as well.

I put them back right and saw that somebody had turned the elements to hide cleaning scratches. But they at least made sharp images when configured correctly. Well I wanted sharp, but for someone who wants swirl it's an option. Taking these apart is easey-peasey.

If you work a lot with old cameras and lenses pulling the lenses apart just becomes part part of the job. The big ones are simple and easy. Leica lenses are OK, Nikon are harder and cleaning the glass in an 80mm Hassie Planar because I had to take it to a job the next day was a bit terrifying. But it worked, I got the picture. I don't want to do that again.