Lomography has already launched a couple of Petzval lenses and added a vintage vibe to modern digital cameras. This time, they’re presenting you the Petzval 80.5 mm f/1.9 MKII SLR Art, a portrait lens with swirly bokeh and gorgeous retro design. It celebrates the 180th anniversary of Joseph Petzval’s original lens, but it lets you experiment and play with it way more.
The Petzval 80.5 mm f/1.9 MKII SLR Art is made in 19th-century style, celebrating the original Joseph Petzval’s portrait lens from 1840. It comes in Nikon F and Canon EF mounts and there are three versions: Black Anodized Aluminum, Brass Satin, and Brass Black.
This lens sports a helicoid focusing mechanism and stopless aperture diaphragm, so you can to focus and adjust the aperture as the camera is rolling. Because of this, it can be used for both stills and video.
The Petzval 80.5 mm f/1.9 MKII SLR Art features Dual Aperture System. You can insert special aperture plates of different shapes, so you will have the ability to produce patterned bokeh backgrounds.
If you like swirly bokeh, you’ll love this lens! It has that kind of bokeh I find completely irresistible, and you can even adjust how much of it you want. There are seven levels of swirl if you get the Advanced Bokeh Control Edition of the lens. It features an additional Bokeh Control ring, allowing you to adjust the amount of swirl over 7 levels, for even greater experimentation and make it just as intense as you like it.
The Petzval optic design renders photos with different optical effects depending on the aperture. It provides prominent swirly bokeh when shot wide open. When you stop it down to smaller apertures, Lomography promises extreme sharpness across the frame.
Here are a few sample photos taken with this lens:
And here are the specs and a few more photos of the lens itself:
- Focal Length: 80.5 mm
- Lens Construction: 4 elements 3 groups
- Dual Aperture System: Diaphragm Aperture
- f/1.9 – f/16; Waterhouse Aperture System
- Image Circle: 44 mm
- Weight: 440 g (Aluminum version)
- Field of View: 30 degrees
- Lens Mounting Profile: Canon EF / Nikon F
- Electronic Contacts: No
- Closest Focusing Distance: 0.8 m
- Focusing Mechanism: Helicoid
- Filter Thread: 67 mm
- Dimensions: 109 mm (Height) x 78 mm (Diameter) for Canon EF mount, 105 mm (Height) x 78 mm (Diameter) for Nikon F mount
The making of the lens is being funded through Kickstarter and it’s expected to start shipping in July 2020. At the moment of writing this, the campaign has already surpassed the $ 100,000 goal and there are still 32 days to go! And considering that Lomography is confirmed to be a trusted company, there’s no doubt we’ll see this lens in summer if everything goes as planned.
The Kickstarter price is from 290 USD/EUR for the basic edition, 356 USD/EUR for the Advanced Bokeh Control Edition. The estimated retail price will be from 449 USD/EUR for the basic edition, and 549 USD/EUR for the Advanced Bokeh Control edition.
I find it to be vertigo inducing and quite literally causes nausea.
Ok boomer!
It comes in black? How can you scream “LOOK AT ME” without a brass lens?