Petzval (D)SLR lens from the Lomographic Society

Petzval lens isometric view

The Lomographic Society and Zenit have teamed up to present a gorgeous new accessory for your photography. The Petzval lens is a redesigned version of the original Petzval from 1840. It’s a beautiful brass tube with modern lens elements and a mount to fit Nikon F and Canon EF SLR and DSLR. No communication is made from lens to camera and even the aperture uses the old Waterhouse system.

It looks a little weird on the end of a DSLR, but isn’t that what steampunk is all about? Not to mention that the actual development of this lens is steampunk essence in itself. The designs come from a Victorian lens with modern lens technology in an old fashioned design.

Take a look at the information below and let me know what you think.

Petzval lenses on a Nikon and Canon DSLR

Invented in 1840, Reloaded in 2013 by Lomography and Zenit:
The New Petzval (D)SLR Art Lens

The Comeback of the Year: The first and greatest portrait glass lens of all times, reinvented & re-engineered for your Canon and Nikon (D)SLR Cameras!

Character matters: Extreme sharp, fine and crispy, strong colour saturation, bokeh effect, artful vignetting, large aperture for a narrow depth of field.

A totally distinctive look of photos: Capture the moment with manual focusing, depth of field, swirly effects and other Petzval lens specialties – far beyond Photoshop and any filters!

Petzval lens collection

THE COMEBACK OF THE YEAR
Zenit and Lomography engineers redraw, re-calculated and re-measured the original 1840 Petzval lens to make it work for your modern (D)SLR – cameras. With the same unique features as the original lens – swirly bokeh effect, sharpness, large aperture and high contrast – the new design will be compatible with analogue and digital cameras! The Petzval lens is available for preorder exclusively on Kickstarter.com, a platform to fund product innovation ideas: Petzval preorder. With your funding you helped us to bring back this fantastic lens for a whole new generation of photographers and film makers in the 21st century.

Petzval lens Waterhouse aperture loader

CHARACTER MATTERS
Re-create the original and amazing looking 175 year old swirly bokeh effect with your modern SLR camera! The lens made out of Russian glass has a large f2.2 aperture, narrow depth of field, field curvature, with an extremely high resolution in the focus area, making the objects in focus crisp and sharp, while elements out of focus get blurry and swirl away like it was never seen before. While the original lens was only optimized for black and white photography, the new Petzval lens is a high quality multi-coated lens to ensure great performance for analogue and digital cameras!

Petzval lens top view

A TOTALLY DISTINCTIVE LOOK!
Filters go home! The Petzval’s sharp and blurry distinctive swirly bokeh effect is an instant optic result that is extremely hard and time consuming to reproduce with any filters or computer programs. Furthermore the lens has great features such as high colour saturation and contrast as well as a large aperture, close to vintage large format photography! And as the Petzval lens is compatible with all Nikon F and Canon EF mount analogue and digital SLR cameras, you can now get the unique Petzval look on film, pixel images and even video! Say goodbye to complicated post production retouching!

See photos taken with the first working prototype of our New Petzval Lens: Petzval Lens sample images

Visit the Petzval Microsite

Technical Specifications Focal length: