NikonGear'23

Gear Talk => Lens Talk => Topic started by: Jim Covello on September 28, 2020, 03:36:43

Title: Lomography New Petzval 55 mm f/1.7 MKII (Z-mount)
Post by: Jim Covello on September 28, 2020, 03:36:43
My lovely bride (pictured below) bought me this lens as a 30th anniversary gift. It's really a very nice lens and fun to use. It does come with some waterhouse aperture plates that I have not used yet, but I thought that I would post a few photos from a recent trip to Colorado where we were surprised by two days of early snow. As for bokeh, wide apertures make a lot of swirl, and there is a "bokeh control" ring that goes from 1-7 that also adds the effect. I find it pretty easy to focus, at least with stationary subjects, by setting the AF-ON button to a low magnification zoom. That keeps the muscle memory pretty happy, since I usually hit that button to focus with autofocus lenses anyway. Unfortunately, as with virtually all third party lenses, the focus motion is backwards relative to Nikon lenses, which is annoying. Being a native mirrorless lens, it is pretty compact; by "native" I mean that it is not also available in F-mount (or similar) where they make it Z-mount just by building in the extension which just makes the lens longer in your bag. It also focuses quite close without added extension.

I didn't exactly nail the focus in every one of these, but I thought folks would like to see a little bit of what this lens can do.
Title: Re: Lomography New Petzval 55 mm f/1.7 MKII (Z-mount)
Post by: Erik Lund on September 28, 2020, 12:33:19
Congratulations!

Thank you for the review images they are great ;) !
It has so much swirly back ground rendering that I almost get sea sick  :o ;D
Title: Re: Lomography New Petzval 55 mm f/1.7 MKII (Z-mount)
Post by: Jack Dahlgren on September 29, 2020, 02:19:03
Congratulations!

Thank you for the review images they are great ;) !
It has so much swirly back ground rendering that I almost get sea sick  :o ;D

Yes, very uneasy feeling