The Petzval Lens is revived to shine again

My son Christopher alerted me to this Kickstarter project with a difference. It's a great project in Vienna, Austria which is going to be a great piece of equipment for portrait photographers. Its only been up for a couple of days (according to the Kickstarter Page) and is already nearly 6 times oversubscribed. I think it's partly due to the great video they made to explain the project. Good luck to them. This is clearly going to succeed.

In the 19th Century, the vast majority of photos were shot with the extremely popular Petzval lens. The lens was invented by Joseph Petzval in Vienna in 1840 and had a huge impact on the development of photography. Photos shot with a Petzval lens are immediately recognizable for their sharpness and crispness, strong color saturation, wonderful swirly bokeh effect, artful vignettes and narrow depth of field. The totally distinctive look of Petzval photos is all about the fantastic lens design that gives you the satisfaction of the instant optic experience that goes far beyond using photo editing software and filters.

For this Kickstarter project, we are reinventing the Petzval Lens for 21st century photographers and videographers. It doesn’t matter whether you shoot analog or digital; the brand new Lomography Petzval Portrait Lens is designed to work with Canon EF and Nikon F mount cameras. So, for the first time, you can easily get the fantastic Petzval photographic look with 35mm analog cameras and DSLR cameras too. This will bring with it a whole new world of possibilities; from shooting Petzval photos with your 35mm SLR or DSLR, to creating amazing DSLR movies with the lens!

The Petzval Portrait Lens is a high-quality glass optic; it's a must-have lens for anyone looking to enhance their creative potential and turn every photo into a timeless artwork.

Expected delivery date of the lenses is on February 2014. However, we are confident to have the first 1000 lenses shipped out by December 2013.

The retail launch price of the lens is currently planned as $499/€499 and the Special Edition at $599/€599, so you can make some great savings by backing us on Kickstarter! When the lenses are ready, you'll be able to pick whether you want a Canon or Nikon compatible Petzval lens. Each lens looks absolutely fantastic attached to DSLR cameras and analog cameras!