Joseph Petzval, a math professor at the University of Vienna, revolutionalized portrait photography in 1840 when he invented the Petzval lens, which can capture pictures 20 times faster than what was available at the time.
In addition to speed, the Petzval lens also produces photographs that are sharp, crisp and strongly color-saturated—more importantly, they feature a lovely “swirly” bokeh effect that makes them so wonderful to look at.
To bring back the delight of shooting with a Petzval lens for today’s photographers, Lomography has started a Kickstarter campaign to re-introduce the legendary lens in a form that will be compatible with modern analog and digital cameras.
Unlike the company’s usual plastic camera products, this updated version of the almost 200-year-old lens is a beautiful piece of gold hardware that is designed for use with all Nikon F and Canon EF mount cameras.
The retail launch price is currently planned to be around US$499/€499 for the basic lens and US$599/€599 for the Special Edition lens, which means that you will get to enjoy significant savings if you pledge for the project on Kickstarter now.
Find out more about the project and the product over here.
[via Kickstarter]