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Kickstarter Project for Petzval Lens

BlinkingEye

New member
This project caught my eye because I am the queue waiting for a 35mm format Petzval Lens soon to be released by Lomography.

This project is for a medium format lens. An interesting project that will bring old technology to the 21st century. I hope the guy gets funded and is successful.

If I wasn't still waiting for the other lens I would be on the list for this one.

Maybe some folks here are interested. Peace.

The Petzvar f/3.8 120 mm Medium Format Petzval portrait lens by Denys Ivanichek — Kickstarter
 

steve_cor

Member
I received my 120 Petzval lens this week.

It came nicely wrapped, with a fitted box and a cloth bag. Very well presented!

It seems to have more telephoto effect than you'd expect from a 120mm. Magnification more like the Phase One 150mm f/2.8.

The aperture stops down as you rotate the ring. No need to use the stop-down button on the camera. I set the mode dial to manual exposure. If your readout shows you have +3 stops exposure, then increase the shutter speed 3 stops, until the readout comes to zero.

Manual focus only, and focus confirmation works. If you focus as accurately as you can, the subject will never be sharp. It's great if you want soft focus.

For the background to have the swirly circular effect, you'll want to shoot wide open at f/3.8. The more you stop down, the more the background looks normal. But the subject is still unsharp at f/16 when viewed at 100%, or 50%.

--Steve.


 

steve_cor

Member
It may take some experimentation to make the background be not distracting. If the subject fills the frame more, and the background is not too far back, there is less swirly circular effect. This is the same picture, cropped.

--Steve.

 
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