[ThorSanchez]

is it Christmas already?

You got me. I've come back from the future. I am The Doctor.

[ZombieArmy]

This lens has a great aesthetic, seems like a very fun experience albeit a bit expensive. I think I need to expand my normal lens collection before I get something like this, gotta save up for a 12-24mm

[pathdoc]

This lens has a great aesthetic, seems like a very fun experience albeit a bit expensive. I think I need to expand my normal lens collection before I get something like this, gotta save up for a 12-24mm

It's not a lens for photographers whose subjects lack patience or are in any way fidgety, nor for anything where quick reactions are the order of the day. Being brass, it's heavy as hell; it's manual focus; the softness wide open at close range is something close to obscene. The fact that you have to insert the aperture plates manually makes operation slow and fiddly. I have put in the cupboard to go under the Christmas tree. I anticipate singling with it in January, after having the closing days of December to get used to its peccadilloes.

[Topsy]

I like how the lens itself looks.

But I can't say I fancy buying it. It's actually motivating me to experiment and build something myself. Or try to get my hands on a trulyold lens and make it fit somehow.

I hope you guys have fun with it!

[ThorSanchez]

I've been playing around a little more with the lens. It's... something. It's different. Obviously if you're trying to nail razor sharp focus you'll want to look elsewhere. But everything is dreamy and weird and, yea, different. This is going to be the lens for this year's Christmas Card picture, no doubt. Going to the family farm next week for Thanksgiving, and it'll probably stay on the camera quite a lot.

[virusn3t]

Recieved my lens today (well, i finaly retrieved my lens, it was delivered this monday) feels very nice and heavy, very good package

Sorry for awfull crappy cellphone quality pictures, need more testing but is good enough sharp at f4 (IBIS set at 65mm, ISO 3200, 1/30, from raw to jpeg with no editing on the TMNT picture), but need more testing, im happy with the lens, i get Hipster+2 with this thing, Cereal Number 1796

[narual]

I'm having the worst luck with this lens. Suddenly no one wants to pose for me to test it out, and I took it to a family thing this weekend planning on a captive audience, and BOTH batteries in the camera were dead. I think it must have had someting pushing on one of the buttons in my camera bag, so it didn't go to sleep or something.

[Sandy Hancock]

Mine arrived today.
It is a glorious thing to touch and behold, but it will be staying in its incredibly beautiful box until Christmas.

[IgorZ]

I'm having the worst luck with this lens. Suddenly no one wants to pose for me to test it out, and I took it to a family thing this weekend planning on a captive audience, and BOTH batteries in the camera were dead. I think it must have had someting pushing on one of the buttons in my camera bag, so it didn't go to sleep or something.

brutal force works for me. I tell the kids no TV or video games unless they sit and smile

I have a CZJ Sonnar 2.8/180, which I use with my 645. When I use it with fuji acros it produces really ancient-looking photos. Kind of creepy, actually,seeing my 7 year old daughter in a photo that looks like it was made in the 19th century... I wonder if the petzval lens produces a similar effect. So far I've only seen color photos made with the lens. Wonder what B&W looks like

[ThorSanchez]

brutal force works for me. I tell the kids no TV or video games unless they sit and smile

I have a CZJ Sonnar 2.8/180, which I use with my 645. When I use it with fuji acros it produces really ancient-looking photos. Kind of creepy, actually,seeing my 7 year old daughter in a photo that looks like it was made in the 19th century... I wonder if the petzval lens produces a similar effect. So far I've only seen color photos made with the lens. Wonder what B&W looks like

Here are a couple of B&W examples with the Achromat and the K-3II. The old house is an HDR done with Nik tools.

[pathdoc]

Here it is, with the lens wide open (no aperture plates installed). At a guess, I reckon this makes it an f/2.7 or f/2.8 lens.




Here it is at f/8



And here it is at f/16; I had to boost the ISO to 400 here because the AF280T simply didn't have the power to do the job at that aperture and 200 ISO.



Shots with all the plates sequentially installed are on my Flickr; the f/11 shot is notably darker because the 280T was already struggling, but by the time I noticed this (I'd already reshot the markedly underexposed f/16 shot), I'd packed the lens away and was too tired to dig it out and reshoot.

[IgorZ]

Here are a couple of B&W examples with the Achromat and the K-3II. The old house is an HDR done with Nik tools.

Great, thanks! The old house looks nice like that

[ThorSanchez]

Below is a link to my Google Photos site, and a series of 100 pictures from my family's Thanksgiving at our ancestral farm in Virginia. All taken with the Achromat on my K-3II. Many wide open without any aperture plate, but also many with various plates inserted. Levels of post processing vary, some just a little, some HDRs or B&W conversions using Nik, some pushed to emphasize the surreal qualities of the lens.

A Daguerre Thanksgiving.

[IgorZ]

Below is a link to my Google Photos site, and a series of 100 pictures from my family's Thanksgiving at our ancestral farm in Virginia. All taken with the Achromat on my K-3II. Many wide open without any aperture plate, but also many with various plates inserted. Levels of post processing vary, some just a little, some HDRs or B&W conversions using Nik, some pushed to emphasize the surreal qualities of the lens.

A Daguerre Thanksgiving.

Thanks for sharing! Nothing better than to have a great lens at a great family gathering

[TomTom]

Thanks for the heads-up about this thread, ThorSanchez. I've enjoyed seeing everyone's shots. Here's a link to a few I shot with the lens in the first few days that I've had it, most at F2.9 or F4. See the descriptions on flickr for details. The shot below was at 2.9.