hobby is buying and testing vintage lenses. This of course
is an expensive and bottomless pit. So I thought it might
be fun to expand that idea a bit and post images made with
certain lenses on pages here so that others could get a
feel for what different vintage lens designs might offer.
The first
one is an ancient Bausch & Lomb projection lens.
I had
bought it maybe 18 months ago and it languished until
last
weekend (Memorial Day '05). I've been taken with the
possibilities
of Petzval type lenses for portraits. After
spending
some mega $$$ for several large antique lenses
I rediscovered
the old B&L and checked it for type. To
my surprise
it is also Petzval, and a good focal length. 15".
Since
it is a projection lens from some ancient magic lantern
it has
no aperture and it is smaller in max aperture than
the
big dedicated portrait types. To make a long story short
it's
small enough to fit a 4 1/2" board on the 5X7 Kodak
and
that makes it attractive for travel.
The first
group of photos are portraits all shot within
several
minutes of each other. The subjects are in open
shade
but the far background is in direct sunlight. My
intent
right from the start is portraits with some tack
sharp
features that fade into complete blur with excellent
Bokeh.
These are milestones for me as they are the first
of hopefully
many more where I feel I accomplished
exactly
what I wanted. The 15" Petzval was at 22-24"
for
most of these and the depth of focus is shallow indeed.
Mason & Caedon
Megan
Mason
Mason Profile
Heather
The next
group are of a hoary "Cletrac" tractor. I've photographed
it many
times because it resides at a campground where our
large
family meets for re-unions twice yearly. It gets "watered"
daily
by sprinklers and the result is a rather spectacular patina
of rust
and oxidation from the minerals in the local H2O, I was
extremely
pleased with these found shots. All else same as above.
Cletrac 1
Cletrac 2
Cletrac 3
Cletrac 4
Cletrac 5
Let me
know what you like or dis-like.