My Flea market Petzval

[Ian Grant]

I bought this dirty old lens at a flea market 6 weeks ago, sold as a projection lens. What initially looks like a lens hood is the fitteng for the magic lantern projector. It was very cheap.

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

and now

The lens is now identified as a 200mm/8" f4.8 Petzval and I've made some Waterhouse stops and cleaned the lens thoroughly. It's fitted to a Speed Graphic lens board ready for use.

Ian

 

[Chris Lange]

Looks great now, also loving the bare wood on the Graphic.

 

[Bruce Osgood]

Now that's a worth while project.

 

[zsas]

Ian, can we see an image photographed with your restored lens? Great work!

 

[Ian Grant]

Ian, can we see an image photographed with your restored lens? Great work!

Hope to use it in the next week or so so yes will post images when I do.

Ian

 

[DSLR]

Wow, nice work. That thing looked beyond repair.

Would love to see some images.

 

[eddie]

Ian- You have better flea markets than I do... Looking forward to the images.

 

[Ian Grant]

Ian- You have better flea markets than I do... Looking forward to the images.

This was a very large monthly flea market, in fact there's not a lot of photographic items although I bought a load of wood & brass camera parts at the next one.

the Petzval came from an antique dealer who also has a stall at camera fairs, often sellers have already creamed off the best items and use flea markets and camera fairs to off-load surplus items they habe no time to really sort or even clean up.

Ian

 

[MacReady]

That looks like it was hugely satisfying to clean.

I'm new to LF but keep seeing Petzval lenses being mentioned, are they a cult classic or?

 

[Ian Grant]

That looks like it was hugely satisfying to clean.

I'm new to LF but keep seeing Petzval lenses being mentioned, are they a cult classic or?

Some think Petzval/Darlot lenses are cult lenses and they can fetch very high prices for the most desirable models and even the one I've just acquired is worth very considerably more than I paid for it. Thomas Bertilson has a current thread about the issues of using lenses like this (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

My own take is in the past I've very occasionally used soft focus filters, others swear by specific soft focus lenses like the Dalllmeyer 3B and the Cooke Portrait lenses, others like older Petzval/Darlot lenses. I wouldn'thave paid around £200/$300 to try a lens like the one I bought, I couldn't justify it to myself, but £20 and a chance on it being too far gone or restorable was well worth a go. It may be that I try it and then sell it but there's a possibility of a semi-commercial / educational project using the lens along with Harman Direct Positive paper at some special events.

Ian