Peter Atwood’s Custom Aperture Plates for the New Petzval Art Lens

14 10

Say “Hi!” to our community’s very own Peter Atwood aka clickiemcpete’s nifty, custom-made aperture plates for his Petzval Lens!

Photo by Peter Atwood taken with the Canon 5D Mark II with 58mm Canon 500D close-up lens via Flickr

It hasn’t been long since Lomography started shipping the first batch of the new Petzval Art Lenses to its lucky owners, yet it’s astounding how some photographers have already found innovative ways to make their experience shooting with it more fun and creative! Case in point is that Western Massachusetts-based photographer *Peter Atwood*, better known as *clickiemcpete* here in the Lomography community, have created a pair of custom aperture plates out of titanium!

Photos by Peter Atwood taken with the Canon 5D Mark II with the Petzval lens and 58mm Canon 500D close-up lens, plus one of his custom titanium aperture plates via Flickr

The Petzval Lens already comes with a set of plates featuring shapes such as stars and a water droplet, but Atwood added two more to his – one that says “Hi” and another of a triangular symbol. Unfortunately, Atwood said that he accidentally cut these upside down! “I forgot that the image will be upside down in the image, though, so will make another pair of these,” he wrote on his Flickr.

Atwood owns the Petzval lens for Canon cameras, which he has tested out using his EOS 3000 and 7E for analogue shots and the EOS 5D Mark II for digital. Judging from his comments in his Petzval albums in his LomoHome (here, here, and here), Atwood sure is having a blast with his new lens!

Here are a few sample shots from his album _Petval on the Street_!

These don’t really show it too much but I used a homemade custom aperture shape in my Petzval lens. More to come from this… Atwood on Petzval on the Street

Information in this article were sourced from Peter Atwood’s Flickr page and LomoHome.

written by chooolss on 2014-02-05 #news #diy #clickiemcpete #petzval #petzval-art-lens #custom-aperture-plates #peter-atwood

10 Likes

edwinchau, schlogoat, grazie, alienmeatsack, clickiemcpete, stouf, mafiosa, robertofiuza, clownshoes & ricoinbrooklyn.

14 Comments

muhamad_haiz_shamsudin · 2014-02-05 16:06
@clickiemcpete Do you do commissions? They look awesome!
mafiosa · 2014-02-05 16:42
@clickiemcpete - very cool. I have a couple of questions. First one will probably sound dumb:
1) What does an aperture plate do? How is it used?
2) Do you have machining equipment? I've been thinking of getting some non-photography related metal work done...
bsdunek · 2014-02-06 00:51
I would think the aperture shapes would produce more interesting photos. Perhaps you need some highlights to do that. Titanium seems like over kill. There are no stresses on aperture plates. Plain steel, or perhaps stainless steel would be fine, and would cost a lot less.
clickiemcpete · 2014-02-07 13:09
Hehe, thanks for the kind words folks! As some of you might know I am a metal artist specializing in small tools and pocket accessories. LSI forgot to send me my special shape aperture plate with my Petzval so I decided to design my own. ;)
clickiemcpete · 2014-02-07 13:11
@bsdunek, I have access to CAD, waterjet and titanium in the correct thickness so why not? The reason the highlights are not more interesting at this point is because we are having an unusually cold and dreary winter so far which has made shooting difficult. These are just the first results. ;)
chooolss · 2014-02-07 13:23
@clickiemcpete hey there! A representative from our Customer Service will be contacting you soon regarding your Petzval aperture plates. Thank you for informing us, and we're sorry about the confusion :) But again, great job with these custom plates and we look forward to seeing more of these and your photographs!
alienmeatsack · 2014-02-07 20:51
@mafiosa - these aperture plate do what any aperture does at their core, they act as a gateway for the amount of light that is allowed to enter the camera and also control the depth of field. The custom shapes like these also have an added bonus of creating interesting shape bokeh based on the shape of the aperture itself. If you notice with standard cameras, sometimes the bokeh is shaped into polygons, circles, etc. That is a direct result of the shape of the aperture and its blades if applicable.

You can replicate this style of look easily, just take a piece of black construction paper or posterboard or similar and cut out a small shape in it. Place it over the lens of your favorite camera and aim it towards something with light and you should get stars, hearts, fish, etc. I've seen people do letters, numbers, symbols, and also use polygons of assorted amounts of sides to make the bokeh and light spots more interesting.
mafiosa · 2014-02-07 21:16
@clickiemcpete - you are my hero :)
koduckgirl · 2014-02-08 21:12
Hi @clickiemcpete your plates look great and I have a not so silly question: I got the petzval lens and along with the fact that they forgot my bokeh plates, the aperture plates AND the dust cover plate that I got are ALL coated in something that lil by lil scrapes off minutely everytime you put them in and out (I am not the only one who noticed) so I have a piece of duct tape over the slot and shoot all the way open as a result! Back to my question(remember?!) Are your custom plates coated and therefore able to scrape off inside the lens? Also the ones that came with the Petzval lens don't all fit in the slot!!! Do yours? Cheers
clickiemcpete · 2014-02-08 22:45
@koduckgirl, check your messages, I sent you some info... Also, my aperture plates do all seem to fit but yes, I'm not crazy about the flaking paint which I noticed as well. As far as my own plates, solid titanium does not flake...of course it isn't black either. Whether it makes a big difference in stray reflections etc, I don't really know. I might make some plain round aperture replacements for myself but it's very costly to get ti waterjet cut. The stock plates are either stamped or laser cut and are probably just steel......if someone had a 3d printer I would think making sets of these in black plastic would be very simple.
koduckgirl · 2014-02-09 00:36
Yes to your plates I will gladly pay you for some fun ones just let me know i could Paypal you! You are Brilliant btw and why were the Petzval engineers so stupid gawd!!!!
Cheers pearl
grazie · 2014-02-11 20:42
wow this is so cool! @clickiemcpete
alburnkat · 2014-02-11 21:00
@clickiemcpete Good ones tool man. ;-)
rateyes · 2015-02-14 16:01
Here's a custom sliding aperture plate holder on Etsy, if anyone's interested:
www.etsy.com/listing/222583188/sliding-lomography-petzval-a…