Petzval lens

Petzval portrait lens.

The Petzval objective or Petzval lens, is the first photographic portrait objective lens (160mm focal length) in the history of photography;[1] It was developed by the German-Hungarian mathematics professor Josef Maximilian Petzval in 1840 in Vienna,[2] with technical advice provided by Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer, the Voigtländer company went on to build the first Petzval lens in 1840 on behalf of Petzval, and whereupon it became known throughout Europe.[2] Later, the optical instruments maker Carl Dietzler in Vienna also produced the Petzval lens.[2]

History

The Voigtländer-Petzval objective lens were revolutionary and attracted the attention of the scientific world because they were the first mathematically calculated precision objectives in the history of photography. Petzval's lens established two new features: firstly, it was comparatively more light-fast compared to previous lenses with a maximum aperture of 1:3.6; In comparison to Daguerre's daguerreotype camera lens of 1839, Petzval's design was 22 times more powerful, which enabled under favourable conditions for the first time portraits with exposure times of less than a minute.

Additionally, Petzval calculated for the first time the composition of the lenses based on optical laws, whereas optics before had previously been ground and polished according to experience. For the calculations, 8 artillery gunners and 3 corporals were made available to Petzval by Archduke Louis of Austria (commander of the artillery), since the artillery was one of the few professions where mathematical calculations were made.

The Petzval objective was produced by Voigtländer and sold worldwide; until 1862 Voigtländer had produced 60,000 pieces.

One disadvantage of Petzval's design was a sharp drop in sharpness at the edges, which was corrected in the aplanat developed by Hugo Adolph Steinheil.

The lens consisted of two doublet lenses with an aperture stop in between. The front lens is well corrected for spherical aberrations but introduces coma. The second doublet corrects for this and the position of the stop corrects most of the astigmatism. However, this results in additional field curvature and vignetting. The total field of view is therefore restricted to about 30 degrees. An f-number of f/3.6 was achievable, which was considerably faster than other lenses of the time.

Lens revival

In 2013 Lomography successfully launched a crowdfunding campaign at kickstarter.com to produce a new Petzval lens in Russia for film and digital cameras.[3]

References

Ray, Sidney (2002). Applied Photographic Optics. Oxford, UK: Focal Press. ISBN 0-240-51540-4. 

  1. ↑ US Grant US2500046 A, Willy Schade, "Petzval-type photographic objective", published 7 March 1950, assigned to Eastman Kodak Co.
  2. 1 2 3 Day, Lance; McNeil, Ian (1996). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. London: Routledge. pp. 958–959. ISBN 0415060427.
  3. ↑ Kickstarter
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