The Lomography X Zenit New Petzval lens -- a hands on review

It began as a Kickstarter project that caught on and went viral raising $1,396,149 when its initial goal was set at $100,000. This is a new version of the old Petzval portrait lens designed for use on modern Nikon and Canon cameras. Lomography had it manufactured by the Zenit camera company in Russia.

Joseph Petzval's 1840 design for the portrait objective lens consisted of a cemented doublet lens in front, a doublet lens with an air gap in the rear, and a diaphragm between the two lens groups. At f/3.6 this lens was considerably faster than the f/15 Chevalier lens that was in wide use on Daguerreotype cameras at the time, and shortened the exposure time from about 10 minutes down to only 30 seconds. This was a considerable benefit for portrait photographers and the lens became immediately popular.

One of the early Kickstarter Lomography Petzval lenses in its packaging. Scattered about are the waterhouse stops that serve as diaphragm openings. 

One quirk of the Petzval design was that, while it was extremely sharp in the middle of the image, it became very soft due to curvature of field with some vignetting towards the edges of the frame giving a pleasing, swirling effect to the bokeh it produced. The design worked well for portraits by focusing the attention on the face and gently going out of focus from there.

This lens is difficult to focus. First of all, the lens has an appropriate rack-and-pinion focus system with considerable play -- part of the nature of the design. This is the original way this lens was focused and adds to the mystique of using it. Nonetheless, on a lens that has an extremely shallow depth of field, the point of focus needs to be dead on, and this is hard to do. Second, it is not easy to see the focus on a modern SLR finder screen. On my Nikon cameras I found myself gently racking the focus knob in and out with the camera motor blazing away in an effort to bracket the focus point.  This is where something like focus peaking would come in handy, and that is why I decided to mount the lens on a Leica instead.

The Petzval lens mounted on a Nikon D800 -- a great combo, but, as I found out, very difficult to focus. 

My favorite way of using this lens was not on a Nikon but on a Leica M 240 with an adapter. The Leica has two forms of manual focus assist: focus peaking, and image magnification. This can be seen in live view either on the LCD screen or through the optional EVF finder. In addition, the Leica, like the Nikon, is a full frame camera and could take full advantage of the edge bokeh that the lens produces. Since the lens is manual focus only, nothing was lost by moving it to the manually focusing Leica.  I also tried the lens on a Fuji X-E2. It worked well, but the smaller APS-C sensor cropped out much of the desirable soft edge area of the lens. To take full advantage of the characteristics of this lens a Leica M or Sony A7 may be the best the way to go.

This is my preferred method for using the Petzval because the Leica has both focus peaking and image magnification to ease the difficulty of manually focusing this lens.  Plus the Leica M is a full frame camera so it takes full advantage of the entire image area cast by the lens. 

The focal length of the lens is 85mm -- a perfect size for a full frame portrait lens. Aperture is set using waterhouse stops that slip into the lens from a slit on the top. Stops range from f/2.2 down to f/16. To maintain the soft edge qualities for which this lens is noted, you are probably going to want to stay with the more wide open stops.  I found myself settling in on the f/2.8 for almost everything.  An additional set of design stops is available as an accessory.

Because the waterhouse stops just slip into their slot there is nothing to hold them in place, and they will fall out if you hold the camera sideways or tilt it upside down -- just another aspect of this lens that adds to its charm, I suppose.

While the center of the lens produces a sharp image relative to the edges, it is not the same type of sharpness coming from modern, high quality digital lens. The characteristics of the Petzval lens are unique. Getting used to them will take a bit of experimenting. There is a soft halo around even the sharpest areas of the image, especially at more open f/stops. Yet another part of its charm.

The out-of-focus areas in this image are a typical example of the of swirling bokeh characteristic of a Petzval lens. Shot at f/2.8.

Some experimenting is also going to be necessary to obtain the swirling bokeh patterns characteristic of the Petzval lens. A mottled background, or one with lights -- city night lights, Christmas tree lights -- works best. The distance of the background from the subject also plays a significant role in the results. There is a sort of ideal range. It will take a bit of playing around with the lens to find what suits you best.

The lens itself is only 2 3/4" long. A brass lens hood is integrated nicely into the design, and, when attached, the overall length comes to 4 1/4". The hood screws off to gain access to the front of the lens, which accepts 58mm filters. I found that a +1 close-up filter came in handy.

The lens produces its maximum sharpness in the center of the frame. This is evident in the shot above where the left side of the tree drifts out of focus even though it is in the same focal range as the rest of the tree. It will be necessary to take this feature into consideration when composing image with this lens.

Swirling bokeh is only visible over the the trees in the upper right of the frame because of its mottled contrast -- something to keep in mind if this is the effect you want to achieve. 

I found myself settling on the f/2.8 waterhouse stop as my ideal aperture setting. It provided the swirling bokeh the lens is known for and seemed to produce a center sharpeness better than the f/2.2. On portraits the f/2.2 had a soft halo around the sharp areas a lot like you get by using a close-up filter on a f/1.4 lens. This is not necessarily bad, but the sharp areas in this case were a little too soft for my taste.

The swirling, while apparent on the left,  is downplayed here because the background is fairly close to the subject. Even so the softness characteristics of the lens have their own unique feel. 

This was taken at the minimum 1 meter focus distance of this lens. I was surprised that the bird allowed me to get that close.

The star effect is a result of photographing a glittery surface in a strong light with the star-shaped waterhouse stop inserted in the lens, as shown below 

The most obvious display of the Petzval swirling focus is apparent when shooting with  lights in the background. 

It is tempting to apply older monochrome photographic techniques to the Petzval images. The look and feel just seems to suit.

I couldn't resist applying a  wet plate technique to this Petzval portrait.  The application was done in Photoshop using Alien Skin Exposure 5 software vintage looks.

Let's face it, if you're acquiring this lens it's probably more for the fun of using it than anything else. Much of the enjoyment we derive from the New Petzval lens is in the link it provides to a past era of photography. The simple fact that we can participate in the mystique of that lineage is part of the unseen value that comes in the package.

First view of the new Fujifilm X camera, the X-T1

First photo of the Fujifilm X-T1 camera. Controls on the left appear to be similar to those of an X-E2, but balancing the body style out nicely on the right is a new, quick-change knob for selecting ISO settings. Also appears to be a flash sync on the right and another wheel on the right. 

Fujifilm put out a teaser photo today of its newest X camera due to be announced next week, the Fujifilm X-T1. The knobs on top of the body give it an SLR retro look a bit reminiscent of the recently released Nikon DF. The X-T1 is expected to fit in the X line up between the X-E2 and E-Pro series. The main body difference is in the SLR-type finder. From a report I heard form someone who has handled the X-T1, its EVF finder is supposedly excellent, producing a very large image with high refresh rate coupled with a high eye point making it possible for eyeglass wearers to see the full image with their eye a considerable distance from the finder window.

The X-T1 is expected to have the same 16.3MP sensor in the other top X cameras, and accept Fuji X mount lenses. Other anticipated features may include continuous shooting up to 8fps, improved AF and low-light AF, a high speed USH-II SD card slot, internal Wi-Fi connectivity, weather resistant body, and tilt-screen. Anticipated price is expected to be in the $1300 range for the body.

The X-T1 will be announce on January 28th and available in stores mid-February. Stay tuned.

A Fuji X-E2 lifestyle shoot - one model, one camera, one lens

This entire shooting was done with the Fuji X-E2 and a manual focus Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron lens, which is equivalent to 75mm on the Fuji APS-C sensor.  I used focus peaking all day to assist with the manual focusing and have to say I am really liking it. It is fast, convenient, and accurate. Most of these scenes are severely backlit, and to push the high key lighting effect I didn't use a front fill, but opened the exposure one more stop instead.  This really blasted out the background. focusing -- whether auto or manual -- is no picnic in a situation like this. I can barely see the details in the models face against the strong back light. No wonder most cameras have a problem in a situation such as this.

Backlighting is a tough situation for using an EVF finder.  Because there is a strong light from behind entering the camera, the finder is fooled by it and darkens the image in the EVF to compensate.  This leaves the main subject, the model's face, very dark making it extremely difficult to manually focus on it. Fortunately, the X cameras have a solution for this. On the Screen set-up menu there is a "Preview exposure in manual mode" with an ON/OFF option. Setting it to ON means the EVF/LDC brightness will correspond to the exposure setting in manual mode. This is very helpful in a situation like the one below because you can actually see when the correctly balanced exposure as you adjust the shutter speed or lens aperture with the camera in manual mode.

Of course in the very near future I won't have to use my 50mm Summicron as my main lifestyle lens because the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 will be available and do the same thing, but with auto focus. Can't wait.

Still life photography with a new Petzval lens on the Fuji X-E2

The Petzval portrait lens was invented in 1840 by Joseph Petzval. This innovative design allowed much faster apertures than previous lenses, and significantly cut down the exposure times needed for taking pictures. A new version of the original Petzval design to fit Nikon and Canon cameras has recently been re-manufactured as part of a Lomography Kickstarter project.  I will be writing a full blog post on this lens on a Nikon camera in a later post, but for now I couldn't resist the temptation to mount the lens on a Fuji X camera using a Nikon to Fuji X adapter.

The lens is noted for its flattering use in portraiture, and a soft, swirling bokeh effect in out of focus areas. To harmonize the characteristics of the lens with my still life project, I kept to muted colors and soft, bright lighting.

The Petzval lens was mounted on the X-E2 using a Nikon to FX adapter. The lens uses rack-and-pinion focusing and  has Waterhouse stops inserted in the top for aperture settings, the widest aperture being f/2.2.  I used the f/2.8 stop for all of the still life photos.

Sony A7r with Leica M lenses - a hands-on review

Leica owners were immediately excited with the first announcements of a full-frame, small, 36mp, mirrorless camera from Sony with the ability of accepting Leica M lenses. It sounded a bit like a Leica aficionado's holy grail: a high resolution, full frame body with a higher resolution than a Leica M, and costing only a third the price of the Leica M 240 -- sounded like a perfect solution for a second, high quality body.

Sony brought the A7r into the world with only two Zeiss prime lenses available for it plus one A7 Sony kit zoom of dubious quality -- a very limiting series to say the least. The other Zeiss lenses in the series intended for this camera only begin to become available months from when the camera came out. You can adapt other Sony lenses to the camera, but this is a stop gap medewinare until the real thing comes along, and most of us do not have the other Sony lenses anyway.

A Sony A7r camera with 36.4MP sensor and mounted with a Leitz 35mm Summilux lens. Around it are some of the lenses used for testing in this blog post, including a 21mm Elmarit, 90mm Elmarit, 28mm Summicron, 50mm Summilux, 135mm APO-Telyt-M, and two Voigtlander super wide lenses, the 12mm (shown above) and 15mm.

You can adapt Leica M lenses, if you have them, using a Leica M to Sony E mount adapter. At $2300 the A7r costs substantially less than a $6950 Leica M 240 camera body, and with 36.4MP sensor thrown in as an added bonus, it has the potential of serving as a second body to a Leica system, or of replacing the expensive Leica all together.  The real question we all had is how well the Leica M lenses will perform on the A7r. The reason for concern is that the Leica M camera firmware coupled with sensor design is configured to work with and correct the known aberrations in its own lenses, whereas the Sony A7r is not. This is not such a big concern in medium to long focal lengths, but can become serious with wide angles. The sensor in the A7r also has micro lenses on it to compensate for the short throw of rangefinder lenses, particularly wide and super wide angle lenses.  This addition may help somewhat with the use of shorter Leica lenses. We shall see later it this helps.

There are a number of M to E adapters available. I tried two and had problems with one of them. Until the A7 series came along, the E-mount was used on smaller APS-C sensor cameras that did not require an opening as large as a full frame camera. One adapter I used, a Voigtlander, had a black ring inside of it that caused vignetting with the M lenses. I ended up using a Metabones M-E adapter, which worked fine with the full range of M lenses I tried.

The real question mark of lens adaptability is with the wide angles, such as the 28mm Summicron mounted above and the 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M next to it. 

The A7r has a 36.4MP sensor, and no covering anti-aliasing filter. It is the same sensor used in the Nikon D800E, and, as you would expect, its performance is close to par with that camera. That may be all that is necessary to say about the image quality from the A7r. The performance of the D800 camera is about as good as things get with current digital technology. So not much is left to add about the image quality of the A7r.  It produces, as you would expect, top notch resolution and very good noise control at high ISO levels, although a camera of this type is not typically intended for shooting situations where noise would be an issue. A high resolution camera is generally used for landscape, fashion, and still life advertising photography, and where very large print output is necessary. These are situations that generally require tripods or stobes, and don't require high speed captures. For hand-held, low-light, or fast changing subjects, smaller resolution cameras are a better choice. Nonetheless, I did take an ISO test series of images that can be downloaded below.

This series of interiors of Grand Central Station was taken with the Leica 28mm Summicron lens. No post-processing was performed on the images. You can readily see the vignetting and color fringing.  Download high res version of the various upper ISO samples with the links below. These files came from a 36MP camera so they are quite large. 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE HIGH RES VERSION OF THE ISO 1600 FILE

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE HIGH RES VERSION OF THE ISO 3200 FILE

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE HIGH RES VERSION OF THE ISO 6400 FILE

While testing the A7r with Leica lenses I had a Leica M 240 with me also and did some side-by-side comparative shots. For the sample below I used the same 50mm Summicron lens on both cameras.

One of these photos of the Chrysler Building was taken with the A7r, the other with the Leica M 240. You can download a high res version of the comparative set by CLICKING HERE.  They are full res crops of the originals. The photos are not labeled.   The results are given at the very end of this blog post, but first see if you can tell the difference on your own between the 36MP A7r and the 24MP Leica. 

Digital cameras with high megapixel sensors, like the A7r and Nikon D800, also demand good shooting techniques. The whole purpose of using one of these cameras is to achieve optimal image results. To get the most from them means using a tripod almost all the time -- a lesson I learned the hard way shooting out west with a D800 and occasionally not using a tripod on a very sunny day. Even at high shutter speeds with vibration reduction lenses traces of motion blur softened the shots. The A7r is going to be even more demanding because of its light weight. It doesn't have the heftiness often needed to dampen vibration, even when on a tripod. Its small size won't suggest a heavy mount so it might be tempting to lighten your carry load with a lighter tripod. Not a good idea with this camera, if you want to get the most from it. 

This picture of the Flatiron Building was done with the Leica 35mm Summilux lens, an excellent performer on the A7r.

The image below shows uncorrected tests of each of the Leica lenses I used with wide open aperture on the A7r.  Some very obvious correcting is going to have to be done in post processing to fix the vignette and chromatic aberrations. And, yes, the 15mm Voigtlander, as well as the 12mm, really are as bad as they look. Then again their performance on the Leica M 240 isn't much better. These lenses need a program like CornerFix to correct their exposure, severe vignetting, and color distortions.

The chart shows that the middle and long focal length lenses of 35mm and longer need only minimal correction. It is when you hit 28mm and wider that the problems begin. This does not mean that exceptional images are not forthcoming from the A7r with Leica lenses. It does mean that some post-processing will be necessary to massage the images. Longer lenses like the 90mm (not shown) and 135mm need practically no corrections.

Color fringing was evident in pretty much all shots I did with the A7r and Leica lenses, but less so with the longer focal lengths.

This photo was taken with the Leica 90mm Emarit-M lens, one of the better performers on the A7r. This is an unretouched shot, and you can see the typical color fringing that is present on the left, contrasty edges and corners.  Download a full res version of this shot by clicking here.

One thing I noticed immediately about the A7r shutter is its noisy shutter, especially when compared to a Leica or Fuji X camera.   You are not going to be doing any surreptitious shooting with the A7r in quiet environments.  It has a definite double-clicking sound that is sharp and noticeable. The standard A7 has a different, more muffled sounding shutter with a single click that is more like what you would expect.

One of the best performing Leica lenses on the A7r was the Leica 135mm f/3.4 APO-Telyt-M used for the shot above.

Focus peaking, especially when coupled with image magnification, has become a very helpful feature with manual focus lenses. On the A7r it can be set to varying intensities and color preferences. I have grown to really like the feature and found it very accurate on the Leica M 240 and Fuji X cameras.  On the A7r I found the peaking to be too deep to always be accurate, even after making various adjustments to the intensity setting. The peaking would indicate focus, but sometimes it was tack sharp while the very next frame was off just a bit with the result that I lost a disproportionate number of sequential shots.

The A7r auto color interpretation was very good, although I did not have an opportunity to try it out in portraiture.

Two adapters were used to mount this Leica 80-200mm Elmarit --R zoom on the A7r -- a Leica R to Leica M adapter and then the Metabones M to Sony E adapter. This combo was used to take the two night shots below.

Battery life on this camera is the worst I have ever witnessed. Sony does have an add-on battery accessory that will rectify this problem, but that is only negating what the camera set out to be, namely a very compact system. Having to add or carry spare batteries to make up for performance issues is a bit like sweeping dust under the carpet.

Two super-wide angle Voigtlander lenses with Leica M mount, the 12mm on the camera, and 15mm next to it. 

 Frankly, these two super-wide Voigtlander lenses have terrible aberrations on digital cameras, but if you need a 12mm lens, you don't have many other options, and you're going to have to put up with beating the image into submission using considerable post-processing.

Taken with the Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 lens on the A7r. Heavy vignetting and edge discoloration are a typical characteristic of this lens. As mentioned above, all of this can be corrected by running the image through CornerFix software. 

Same scene as above, but taken with the Leica 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH, one of my favorite super wide angle lenses.  No post-processing was added to the two shots above. Results from the 21mm are very good, especially considering how wide it is. 

Conclusion:

If you are going to be using the A7r with Leica lenses, you should be prepared to compensate for the mis-match by having to perform some post-processing corrections.

This camera is probably going to be better served by its own Zeiss lenses when they become available. Until then, yes, we can adapt Leica M lenses to use on it, and from a point of view of size the fast aperture Leica lenses are more proportionate to the very small camera body. Sony had to make a serious compromise when it tried to have the smallest full frame interchangeable camera body and couple it with modern, auto-focus, stabilized lenses. The Zeiss lenses made for the camera are inherently heavy and bulky.  To keep the size of the lenses to a level where they don't overpower the diminutive A7r body, they were given slow apertures. The two zooms, for instance, are f/4 lenses.

The A7r is a very specialized camera, and I am not sure its formula -- a full frame sensor in such a small camera body -- works. If I really need such high resolution, I feel like I have to pay my dues and go with the  heavier, but more stable (i.e.vibration resistant) Nikon D800. If I want small and compact, I prefer an actual Leica M with its own lenses, or a Fuji X camera with its smaller lenses kit.

The setting sun lit the smoke from behind while the foreground buildings were in deep evening shadow, a difficult situation for any camera. the A7r pulled it off with excellent dynamic range and accurate color rendition and requiring only modest post-processing to balance out the light to dark areas. 

Unless you really, really need the 36.4MP the A7r delivers for making huge prints, the A7 may be a better choice for a small, full frame camera. At 24.5MP is is no slouch. It has a better shutter, faster burst speed (5fps vs 4fps for the A7r), and better auto-focus combining both phase-detection and contrast detection. It is also more forgiving when hand-held.

I am not even sure that full frame and small camera is a viable combination. APS-C sensors have come a long way and are a much better choice for a small camera. Right off the bat, the lenses can be smaller and lighter simply because they don't have to cover so large a sensor area.  A camera like any of the top Fuji X models may be best-of-breed in this genre. Leica works because it comes with a full stable of top notch, tiny lenses -- manual focus, admittedly, but that is how to keep things really compact.

My main purpose in this experiment was to determine if the A7r could serve as a higher resolution substitute, or act as an extra body for a Leica M system. In the end I concluded that the results, while marginally better from the higher res A7r sensor, were not enough for me to use this camera instead of my Leica M 240. The Leica worked better and with considerably less post-processing hassle using its native lenses. This tended to negate any benefits the larger 36MP A7r sensor might have. If it's a less expensive spare body I want, I think I would opt for the features of the A7 over the A7r and save even more.

Pigeon in the snow, Leica 135mm APO-Telyt-M at f/3.4.

In the end I don't think we will really know the full capability and usefulness of the A7r until it has a full complement of its own Zeiss lenses, and that is a long way off. In the meantime other camera manufactures will not be sitting still, which may be one reason why Sony released this camera prematurely relative to its lens system.

Results for the A7r/Leica M comparative test shots of the Chrysler Building: The Leica image is on the left, A7r on the right.

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