Any experience with Lomography Petzval lens?

Has anyone used this on the BMD cameras? I'm curious what types of results you were able to achieve. I took a quick look at their promo video:

This lens seems really interesting. I'd like to hear some first hand experience with the bokeh adapters on video though. They didn't go heavily into that. The lack of any hard focus in video samples was also interesting, as there appeared to be hard focus in the still shots.

I haven't used it. But I have a curious fondness for these types of things, though at a much lower price point. Lensbay's, Diana's, Lomo's.... all that cheap crap. The crop on the bmcc seems to be a little prohibitive on their application in my opinion. The center sharpness takes up too much of the image and I feel better served using them on a 7d. The larger sensor just provides so much more out of focus area which is the fun part of this stuff for me.

They would probably work better on the BMPC or BMPCC with a speed booster than on my ef bmcc. I probably should change models eventually.

I will say however that this petzval gizmo looks like a gimmicky rip off. I don't need brass as cool as it may look. And I certainly don't think I've I've seen anything from it that looks anywhere near as good as lens baby footage I've seen.

Just my drunken sunday afternoon opinion.... My drunken friday opinions are far more lucid.

Just my drunken sunday afternoon opinion.... My drunken friday opinions are far more lucid.

Thats the Kalgoorlie coming out in you

There are a few Lensbaby shots in my feature Phaesporia which was shot on the BMPC 4k

You should look at Dog Schit Optics. They have some interesting, though not crap, lenses.

Just my drunken sunday afternoon opinion.... My drunken friday opinions are far more lucid.

Thats the Kalgoorlie coming out in you

Haha, I was instantly thinking, oh an Aussie, before i even looked at his signature

Funny, I was just using a Petzval lens on my 4x5 in Detroit last week. At the time I was thinking that something like that would be cool on my Pocket camera. Since the Lomography Petzvals are made for full frame cameras they wouldn't fit the bill though since I'd only get the sharp part....

The Dog Schidt lenses look interesting though....

I recently bought a Petzval Autofocus Vormaxlens 60mm F/1.8 Torsion Lomography EOS APSC MFT from Vormaxlens on EBay.

I'm not sure what Lomography is, but this lens can produce some cool art images. I showed a couple of blown out un-corrected pictures to my College Photography instructor and he noted that it looked like I used and old technique of smearing vasaline on a filter. Once I did some correction a completely different picture appeared however.

Focusing was tricky due to the razor-thin DOF and everything was soft at that aperture. It becomes a lot more like a normal lens when you close down the iris.

This lens can produce an otherworldly, surreal image due to it's optical distortion and prismatic effects. I attached it to a DEC Lensregain EF to M4/3 .75x focal reducer and took some wide open T/1.2 shots on my BMPCC 4K. I used a Tiffen Variable ND filter and a Hoya IR cut filter.

Petzval Vormaxlens 60mm F/1.8 ISO 1250

BatWdPetzBR31125024_S029.jpg (719.83 KiB) Viewed 2614 times

Petzval Vormaxlens 60mm F/1.8 ISO 1250

BatWdPetzBR311250C4K_S041.jpg (938.8 KiB) Viewed 2614 times

Petzval Vormaxlens 60mm F/1.8 ISO 400

OlmecPetzBR31400C4K_S073.jpg (670.98 KiB) Viewed 2614 times

Here is another example of the prismatic effect of light reflecting off of leaves using the Vormax 60mm Petzval lens wide open on the BMPCC 4K:

Vormax Petzval 60mm lens at T/1.2 ISO 1250

BatWdPetzBR311250C4K_S046.jpg (705.63 KiB) Viewed 2584 times

Here is an example of that lens / camera combination to illustrate how shallow the DOF is. The outer edges are farther away from the lens, making them out of focus. This was shot from 30 feet away using a DEC Lensregain .75x focal reducer:

Vormax Petzval 60mm lens at T/1.2 ISO 400

DMaskPetzBR31400C4K_S017.jpg (773.66 KiB) Viewed 2584 times

For comparison, this link has the same scene on a Mir-1 37mm lens at around 12 feet away:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=93391&p=567301&hilit=+Olympus+om+28mm+Aputure+DEC+Lensregain+.75+focal+reducer+#p567301

That 60mm lens seems ideal for a dream or hallucinations. Could come in handy.

Looks interesting. Are they trying to produce the unsharpness towards the edges too, or fixing that?

I guess the soft edges are part of the appeal. As is a swirl in the Bokeh, like a Helios 44-2 58mm full frame lens with a reversed front element. I've noticed soft edges on his anamorphic adapters as well.

What is new is that Maxim at Vormaxlens is offering this optical formula for crop sensor cameras.

I bought the lens as is, for parts. I suspect that he is trying different formulas and these are experiments used in the development cycle, as they are for sale at a loss, or at cost.

I have a Ver. 4 revision of his anamorphic adapter on order and will post images when I receive it.

I sent him a link to these posts. Maybe he will respond to your question.

Looks interesting. Are they trying to produce the unsharpness towards the edges too, or fixing that?

I was fiddling around with another aperture setting and having some difficulty with my DEC Lensregain (possibly due to the smallrig T5 SSD adapter interfering with the WiFi receivng unit). I think I had it set to T/2.0 and then restarted everything after the aperture went black. When it came back up it behaved like a normal lens without softness on the edges:

Quite the difference! Interesting interference?

Hi Don, I'm a bit fuzzy at the moment. You have one of these lenses and it went normal at certain aperture/s? Basically at very low speed?

Yes. I'm not sure on the Speed. It may have closed down to f/16 given that I had to open up the variable ND filter and set the ISO to 3200 to get an acceptable image.

Thanks mate.