Lomography Petzval 80.5mm f/1.9 Bokeh Control Review

Back in March, Lomography, a brand known mostly for their art lenses and film cameras, launched a Kickstarter campaign for their newest idea.

The Petzval 80.5mm f/1.9 Mark II was that project, taking a lens design from long ago and making it usable on today's DSLRs (and mirrorless cameras).

The original Petzval lens came out in the 19th Century, and it was revolutionary for photography. It only opened up to f/3.6, but in those days, that was 22 times more light than the most popular options available, making portrait photography possible, since it let exposure times be shorter than one minute.

(Szőcs TamásTamasflex, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

As you can see, it is a very simple design, one which Lomography took and put in a modern lens, while adapting it to newer camera mounts.

My lens arrived about a month ago, and since then I've been playing around with it a bit, to see how it fares in various situations.

If you've ever seen a picture taken with a Helios 44 lens, you should know what kind of pictures this lens will produce. It's more extreme in its rendering, and with the Bokeh Control version (the one I have), you can decide how much you want everything to swirl around your subject, but it feels like a bigger Helios.

I know there is also a Helios 85mm equivalent, which I would love to test out, but for now, this is what I have.

Back to the Petzval, the main question is, is it sharp? Yeah, it is. It might be contained in the center area of the frame, but wide open, it's got some sharpness. The corners however are a different story. They're extremely blurry, have no contrast, and lack any redeeming features. That's the point of this lens, though. It worked 180 years ago, and it works today.

Stopped down, the lens gains edge sharpness and definition, until you can't see a (noticeable) difference between any bokeh level, but it's still not the sharpest lens ever, thanks to the optical formula it uses. (Only 4 pieces of glass, compared to 14 in the Sigma 85 1.4 Art lens.)

If you want extreme sharpness, this isn't the lens for you. You should get a lens from Sigma, Tamron, or even your camera body maker, and you gain AF and image quality.

But if you want a unique type of picture, one which makes your subject stand out a lot from the background, and don't mind the fact that it's a manual focus lens, there's a lot of things going for the Petzval.

The lens is vintage-looking and made of metal, it feels heavy and cold. To me, that's quality, and it makes it enjoyable to touch and feel.

The rings that control focus, aperture, and the bokeh level (in that order, back to front), are easy to turn, clickless and ridged, but not loose enough to be moved by accident.

Bokeh control is the main gimmick of this version of the lens, and I love it.

It allows you to change the whole look of a picture just by moving the ring, but that's not the only option you have.

The lens also comes with a few metal inserts which you put into a slot in the lens to change bokeh shapes. There's one each for stars, hearts, and diamonds, plus one with no shape, designed to keep dust out of the lens. I haven't used these very much, but they're a nice addition and allow you to have fun with lights behind the subject.

I've talked a lot about the swirl, but I haven't really shown you what it looks like, so here goes:

This is Bokeh Control at level 1 (least intense).

This is Bokeh Control at level 7 (most intense).

The normal version of the lens isn't at either end, instead, it's stuck at level 3, which is pretty normal-looking, but still a bit swirly.

It's expensive, but it might be worth it if you want to experiment with extreme swirly bokeh or some of the other effects this lens can produce.

If you think the cost is too high, you could look at the Helios 44-2 (review and video coming soon), or even a Lensbaby Twist 60, even though I think this lens has more of a wow factor than those, both in how it looks and feels and in how the pictures look.

I love the look this lens can give subjects, almost making them seem photoshopped onto the background, and would 100% recommend it to someone who is looking for a specialty lens with unique effects.

If you want a normal lens for portrait pictures, save some money and get a Canon/Nikon 85mm 1.8, or it's equivalent for your camera system.

I'm going to test out the lens some more and upload the video to my YouTube Channel.

Edit: I've uploaded it.

I also have an Instagram and I'd be really happy if you could join me there.

Thanks for reading.

:D