Thanks, Jonathan. I'm losing interest in swirls, but am instead liking the other qualities of petzvals more, even the odd curved plane of focus.
--Leigh.
Thanks, Jonathan. I'm losing interest in swirls, but am instead liking the other qualities of petzvals more, even the odd curved plane of focus.
--Leigh.
I think the swirls are fun, but they don't make a photograph what it is--or shouldn't. I am liking my Petzvals for the same reason you mention, although my example above is guilty or peripheral swirling. Sometimes it can't be helped. I hope to do some portraits sometime soon with mine, but I am not very aggressive when it comes to soliciting models, even if they are friends. It just seems too forward or demanding, especially when I am not yet convinced I have a portraitist's eye. Hence all the shots in my back yard!
Jonathan
From a series I am doinf of my home town.
No name Petzval 180mm ƒ4.5
Fomapan100 in FomadonR09 severely under-exposed and/or underdeveloped.
Palau Maricel por rabato, en Flickr
Hi all! I wrote an article about lens characteristics and "defects" on Photography Stack Exchange, with an underlying theme about how these technical flaws actually can be interesting and postive. Becase Stack Exchange is a wiki-like site, I'm looking for public domain or Creative Commons examples, and the example for field curvature I found is unfortunately boring.
In looking around, I found this forum and this thread with many wonderful examples of the "Petzval swirl" field curvature effect here. I'm wondering if any of you would be willing to license (in low resolution for web use) any of these great examples in a way that could be used (for example under CC-BY, which requires a photo credit) to improve what I've written.
In any case, thanks for all the great examples. I'm not a large-format photographer, but I found all of your work fascinating to look through.
All of mine are taken with a Gunlach ser A Portrait (9in?) on a Speed Graphic
The above are on Illford Ortho Film aperture not noted.
So far I've learned a couple of things. My speed graphic shutter doesn't like being used in the vertical position (got hung up at one point), and a magic arm on a baby jogger is not a good idea for a tripod.
On the photo of the Gunner above the magic arm wouldn't hold so I was trying to steady the camera at a lower angle than I had intended while loading the film. As a result the focus is off, and, I think, the swirl is exaggerated because of the increased angle between the lens and the ground. My next move is to try to calibrate the rangefinder to the Petzal since I made the mistake of taking apart the shutter on the Jena that came with the camera anyway. Don't know when I can dedicate a day to learning how to reassemble the iris and shutter, and find the Petzval more interesting anyway.
Last edited by alanbutler57; 1-Aug-2013 at 06:25.
A little Petzval chaos in the back yard this afternoon.
Kodak 2D 8x10, 9" B&L Cinephor projection Petzval, Kodak Low Contrast Aerial Duplicating Film (SO-277).
Jonathan
The back yard yet again.
Pacemaker Speed Graphic, 6.5" B&L Cinephor projection Petzval, Kodak Aerographic Duplicating Film (2421).
Jonathan
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