Tag: lomography

3 Sixty 5 Photography: 113 Julie. Los Feliz. 

Buckle up for some serious photography nerd stuff; I’m going to do my best to speak both to the technical and non-techical crowds, but if all of it goes over your head you can just enjoy Julie’s glorious booty. 

This blurry beauty is shot with the Lomography Petzval 85mm. The original Petzval was one of the earliest high end camera lenses; and more specifically one of the earliest lenses specifically for portraits. At the time it was one of the fastest lenses, most open aperture, meaning lowest F stop, meaning the most shallow depth of field, meaning more things are out of focus and it draws your eyes attention more specifically to your focused subject; and like it or not, your brain is trained to see that as a higher quality photo. 

What makes this lens amazing is that its work with focus from all sides, both the elements in focus, and those out of focus. The SUPER shallow depth of field is just incredible, and produces just gorgeous images. But beyond that, unlike virtually any lens, this lens takes into account how the out of focus elements look. With this lens they actually make elements to put in the lens to shape how the out of focus elements look, these elements are known as “Bokeh.” 

I normally don’t connect with technically flawed images, out of focus, double exposed, etc. But I find myself loving how the Bokeh of the lens looks. It has a feeling of movement to it, like the world is spiraling away. Its such an interesting thing that this 170 year old design can see reality, through the technology of a digital camera and create an image of reality that to me almost feels like an abstract painting. Fuck I love photography and the science of it!