The Petzval lens

They just about manages to hit their goal of $100,000 ... about 13 times
over, in one month!

<http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lomography/the-lomography-petzval-po
rtrait-lens/>

45 hours to go, then the project will start for real. They've put up
some test shots the last few days, like this f2.2 one:

<http://cdn.lomography.com/downloads/kickstarter/lomography-petzval-kicks
tarter_update_15_aperture_2-8.jpg>

Which isn't really all that sharp in the middle, but that was part of a
aperture testing series. Here's another one:

<http://cdn.lomography.com/downloads/kickstarter/lomography-petzval-kicks
tarter_update_14_canon-5d_closeup.jpg>

Which quite nicely captures the iconic petzval effect. These are test
units and they're apparently tweaking them all the time. Here is one
where sharpness can be judged:

<http://cdn.lomography.com/downloads/kickstarter/lomography-petzval-kicks
tarter_update_14_portrait_lens.jpg>

It's not a supersharp lens by any stretch of the imagination. Another
full resolution image:

<http://cdn.lomography.com/downloads/kickstarter/lomography-petzval-kicks
tarter_update_14_canon-5d_bird.jpg>

This is an amazing shot, and I love this effect, but again, it's not all
that sharp in the center.

A DX shot:

<http://cdn.lomography.com/downloads/kickstarter/lomography-petzval-kicks
tarter_update_14_nikon-d3200_street.jpg>

Very blurry.

I don't need it to be super sharp, but I would want it to be sharper
than this. I don't know if they've used live view when focusing.

Anyway, exciting lens!

 

And viewing another sample, with f11:

<http://cdn.lomography.com/downloads/kickstarter/lomography-petzval-kicks
tarter_update_15_aperture_16.jpg>

It's obviously sharper, so the question remains if the large aperture
blurs the images this much or if they just didn't manage to focus it
properly.