Unqiue lens tested: Petzval 80.5mm f/1.9 Mark II

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Marc Alhadeff from SonyAlphaBlog tested this rare Petzval 80.5mm f/1.9 Mark II lens:

The Lomography Petzval 80.5mm F1.9 Mark II Bokeh Control (499 euros) is an very nice Art lens and an excellent complement to the Petzval 55mm F1.7 MkII

In general “Art lenses” have a very poor sharpness, a vintage color rendition and some re-edition of vintage lenses are sold for crazy price (Around 1000 euros for Meyer Optik Lenses)

Here Lomography has found a very good alchemy with

A superb soft and creamy background blur
A Swirly bokeh effect you can adjust
Very nice Bokeh Balls
A very good and natural color rendition
A good to excellent sharpness in the centre

Of course the lens is not perfect

It is not available in E mount directly (you need an adapter) whereas the Petzval 55mm F1.7 MkII is available in E mount. Compared to it it is much bigger and heavier
It will very difficult to focus outside of the centre and only 25-35% of the image will be sharp
It is not a generalist lens you can use everyday
The Waterhouse aperture / and Bokeh control are options you will not play often with

Globally for portrait, object details (flowers..) the lens is providing superb and unique results plenty of poetry

Also for video the lens is capable of producing subtle dreamy atmosphere while retaining plenty of details on your main subject

Highly recommended

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Sony Tidbits…

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The best value for money telephoto lens for your Sony camera

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Personal photos and tests from SAR Admin Andrea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and 500px.

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The new Sigma 105mm FE lens is now in Stock for the first time

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The new Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens is now in Stock at BHphoto. Adorama. FocusCamera.

Marc Alhadeff tested the lens and concluded:

It would have been a perfect macro lens if we had hard stop for min distance and infinity and a magnification scale but Sigma has chosen to equip the lens with an Declick aperture ring quite useful for portrait and video, making it more versatile but less focused on the macro aspects in term of ergonomics

  • If macro ergonomics are very important for you then the Sony FE 90 f2.8 Macro G OSS has the edge over the Sigma.
  • If you give more importance to pure optical image quality then the new Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN (750 euros) and the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro Apo Lanthar (1200 euros – pure manual lens) are better choice
  • If you want the best quality for money then the new Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN is certainly the best one among all
  • In term of versatility Macro/portrait the Sigma is the best one

Reminder: Sony US launched a ton of new savings and you can see a full overview on this BH page. Some of them are here for the very first time like:

Here are all the new Sony US camera deals:

Here are the new Sony US lens deals:

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