Petzval bokeh

S

Soothsayerman

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I really like the effect these type of lenses produce. It is a nice bokeh with a circular field distortion and I investigated what I would need to do to capture this in my portrait shots using my Canon DSLR.

I did not want to "cheat" and do this in post production so I started researching what I would need to do.

After researching the idea of getting a real petzval, building or buying a mount or a box that a DSLR would then be mounted to, I came to the conclusion that I might better ask around before I started buying and building stuff.

I think the distortion is just caused by non-coated spherical optics on lenses shot wide open and wanted ask the lens sages here if any knew of any lens that might be available in an M42 or M37 mount that might draw light similarly.

I have a couple of old zenit 44's on the way to test them out but wanted see if anyone had any other suggestions to try out.

Thanks in advance.

BTW, I was talking to my local camera store dude about this and he asked me why the hell I would want to go to all this trouble. I told him because it was fun and he just shook his head!
 
Just remember that if your DSLR has a crop sensor it will cut out most of the swirly effect from an old 50mm full frame lens. There would be little effect at all with a Petzval, which I guess would be around 300mm. The image circle is way (way!) too large for a sensor.
 
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Yeah my thought was to build a bellows for the lens and then fiddle with the focal length to see what I could get. I then realized as krzys said, that I might not get what I wanted becaue the image circle would be huge, so now I'm thinking about just finding a 35mm lens that produces a similar look.
 
apodeictic said:
Well I don't know if you'll have much luck getting a large format lens onto a DSLR body. However I did some across this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard314159/4872799252/

Would probably be cheaper to try out than getting an antique!
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Sure looks interesting but I had no luck finding shots taken with that lens. Also, why not make something you can focus using a simple bellows?

I once picked up a 200/5.6 Minolta lens for a xeroxing machine that was set in plastic sewerage plumbing tube and fixed onto a bellows. Big, but easy to focus.
 
Heh, maybe you can use one of those big loupe glass elements to focus the image circle to a smaller area? I'm just thinking out loud here, but why not add another glass element and make it fit?
 
Renzsu said:
Heh, maybe you can use one of those big loupe glass elements to focus the image circle to a smaller area? I'm just thinking out loud here, but why not add another glass element and make it fit?
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Thats not a bad idea really. I wonder if that would work. I'm not sure what causes the circular distortion, so I wonder if doing this would make it disappear. I may go the frankenstein route after all.:)

A friend suggested that I look at the summitar because its distortion is similar. Haven't looked at that yet though.
 
Soothsayerman said:
I really like the effect these type of lenses produce. It is a nice bokeh with a circular field distortion and I investigated what I would need to do to capture this in my portrait shots using my Canon DSLR.

I did not want to "cheat" and do this in post production so I started researching what I would need to do.

After researching the idea of getting a real petzval, building or buying a mount or a box that a DSLR would then be mounted to, I came to the conclusion that I might better ask around before I started buying and building stuff.

I think the distortion is just caused by non-coated spherical optics on lenses shot wide open and wanted ask the lens sages here if any knew of any lens that might be available in an M42 or M37 mount that might draw light similarly.

I have a couple of old zenit 44's on the way to test them out but wanted see if anyone had any other suggestions to try out.

Thanks in advance.

BTW, I was talking to my local camera store dude about this and he asked me why the hell I would want to go to all this trouble. I told him because it was fun and he just shook his head!
Click to expand...

Is this the sort of bokeh you're looking for?

post-20933-127688808473_thumb.jpg
 
180349_501460316683_523391683_6077295_2775220_n.jpg


Swirly of the v2 Summilux

There is (was?) a fellow who posts on APUG selling various brass and Petzval lenses with elaborate thread titles and listings. He has a website which I cannot find showing the results of hundreds of brass lenses - stopped down and wide open.
 
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You won't get anything on a DSLR that will produce results like a petzval on LF - namely for the reasons Krzys mentioned.

If you're simply after swirly OOF take a look at Biotar lenses, especially the 75mm. It's expensive, but it will give you that 35mm size bokeh swirl similar to petzval's.
 
Crikey that Biotar is expensive! I wonder if a jena biotar 58mm would have it. After I get the helios I may try the biotar 58 mm. The 75mm would be ideal but $3000 for a very clean one is pretty steep.
 
Strong swirl and much cheaper:

Leitz 135mm f/4.5 Hektor
Helios 40 (85mm f/1.5)

Plus, the picture I linked to earlier was produced with an ultra-cheap Helios-44 (58mm f/2).

The swirl is inherent to the entire Biotar family and all it's derivatives - the FSU Helios-40 and Helios-44.

If you guys want, I'll post a detailed post on the origin of the swirly bokeh on those lenses, labour of a few hour's worth of research and discussion with a few Optics guys at the local uni.
 
mtargz said:
Strong swirl and much cheaper:

Leitz 135mm f/4.5 Hektor
Helios 40 (85mm f/1.5)

Plus, the picture I linked to earlier was produced with an ultra-cheap Helios-44 (58mm f/2).

The swirl is inherent to the entire Biotar family and all it's derivatives - the FSU Helios-40 and Helios-44.

If you guys want, I'll post a detailed post on the origin of the swirly bokeh on those lenses, labour of a few hour's worth of research and discussion with a few Optics guys at the local uni.
Click to expand...

Uhm...

yes please!

:angel:
 
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