175 Years of Petzval Legacy Competition

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Take part in this competition for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to have your Petzval photo displayed during special worldwide exhibitions commemorating the 175th anniversary of the Petzval Lens. Plus, win a New Petzval 58 Bokeh Control Art Lens and vouchers for the Online Shop!

Photos by Justine Jugnet, Elli Perry, Elisa Imperi, and Santiago Felipe

1840 saw the birth of a lens that revolutionized photography. Esteemed professor and engineer Joseph Petzval carefully calculated and designed this lens to be significantly faster and more precise than what was available at that time. 175 years later, his original creation, the Petzval Lens, is still sought after by photographers and camera collectors.

To celebrate the 175th anniversary of this legendary lens, we’re looking for showstopping photographs taken with the New Petzval 85 Art Lens. Browse through your old Petzval albums or start anew with an experimental concept. Winners will be chosen by an international jury of talented Petzval photographers, so think outside the box and show your most creative take on the lens’ signature swirly bokeh!

Photos by Sunsern Poontavee, Tat Tso, Kevin Meredith, and Anna Fischer

Prizes:

The winning photographs from the competition will be displayed during a special exhibition commemorating the 175th anniversary of the Petzval Lens. Additionally, we have tons of other prizes on offer:

First Place:

New Petzval 58 Bokeh Control Art Lens
800 EUR voucher for the Online Shop

Second Place:

600 EUR voucher for the Online Shop

Third Place:

300 EUR voucher for the Online Shop

Seven Runners-up:

100 EUR voucher for the Online Shop

Bonus Prizes for Competition Winners

These bonus prizes will be given to specially selected participants of the competition.

Tintype Studio Gift Certificate for The Penumbra Foundation in New York, USA – The Penumbra Foundation is a non-profit photographic arts organization whose mission is to bring workshops and greater education, lectures, and events to a diverse and evolving international photographic community. The Penumbra Tintype Studio is a contemporary take on the 19th century wet plate collodion portrait studio. Considered by many to be the Polaroid of the 19th Century, the tintype is made almost instantaneously through a process that uses hand poured chemicals on an enameled sheet of metal.
2 Tickets for the Paul Strand Exhibition at the V&A, London – The tickets will be available from January 2016. This will be a major retrospective at the V&A Museum of the work of American photographer and film maker, Paul Strand (1890-1976), and the first in the UK since the artist’s death. Strand was one of the greatest and most influential photographers of the 20th century whose images have defined the way fine art and documentary photography is understood and practiced today. The exhibition will present around 200 objects spanning Strand’s entire career, including his breakthrough trials in abstraction and candid street portraits, close-ups of natural and machine forms, and extended explorations of the American Southwest, Mexico, New England, France, Italy, Scotland, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, and Romania.
An Interview with you featured in Milk Magazine, Hong Kong – Founded in 2001, Milk is one of the top weekly youth magazines in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. Milk delivers content on fashion, gadget news, art and culture. A special interview with the prize-winner will be shared in the Lomography Column in Milk Magazine.

Photos by Takeshi Suga, Phil Hotson, Asher Moss, and Tim Cavadini

Mechanics:

Only photographs taken with the New Petzval 85 Art Lens will be qualified in this rumble. Please refrain from spamming the submission box.
Maximum of ten submissions per user. Submit your entries here.
Photos must be at least 300dpi and 5000 pixels at the longest side. Unfortunately, photos which do not fit this criteria cannot win. (You can still submit in a smaller format but we will need the bigger files at a later point then)
Competition will run until September 30, 2015.

The Legacy Competition Jury

The competition will be judged by some of the most knowledgeable and skilled Petzval photographers on the planet:

Geoffrey Berliner: Geoffrey Berliner is the executive director of the Penumbra Foundation and the Center for Alternative Photography in New York City. The Penumbra Foundation (www.penumbrafoundation.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to photographic arts and education.
Read our interview with Geoffrey.

Chris Pollard: Chris Pollard is a super talented London-based fashion photographer who also works as a graphic designer for Ralph Lauren.
Read our interview with Chris.

Matthieu Soudet: Matthieu Soudet is a child of photography. He started shooting in his native Normandy when he was only nine years old. Since then, he has dedicated his life to capturing magical moments and puts his boundless creativity to good use through beautiful pictures and portraits.

Issa Ng: As a photographer, Issa Ng is known for his expertise in portraiture and fashion photography. Having worked with different international brands as an Art Director, he has developed a great sense for aesthetics and details, which are reflected in his work.
Read our interview with Issa

Takeshi Suga: Takeshi Suga is a photographer from Kobe, Japan. He embraces all the elements of film photography and creates images that are soft and dreamy.
Read our interview with Takeshi

Plus more Jurors will be announced soon!

2015-08-24 #news #competition #petzval #lomography-art-lens #new-petzval-58 #new-petzval-85

18 Likes

crismiranda, zkaz, swoononeone, umeshu, sanamiii, emkei, walterhisownself, ldelaurentiis, giulialaura, tomas_bates, golfpunkgirl, sirio174, rik041, waynejordan, dop, jacobs, lomaugustry & herbert-4.

45 Comments

lomaugustry · 2015-08-25 01:27
are you accepting both analog and digital ?
tomas_bates · 2015-08-25 09:10
@lomaugustry - Yes for this competition, both analogue and digital submissions are welcome!
carolebrown · 2015-08-25 21:40
I don't see where we enter?
pan_dre · 2015-08-26 09:46
@carolebrown You can submit your shots here www.lomography.com/competitions/2401-175-years-of-petzval-l…
powoui · 2015-09-02 07:24
That's to bad that only people who could offer them a Petzval 85 Art Lens can participate :( I love the Petzval lens but don't have enough money to allow me to buy it… So those who have enough money get the new one for free by winning and more some money… aaah i'm so sad to not participate in this rumble ^^ Good luck to everyone !
hervinsyah · 2015-09-02 22:31
@powoui we are on the same boat plus I hope the winner is not who using digital petzval, amin =)
pan_dre · 2015-09-09 15:17
@poepel @hervinsyah @powoui We hardly ever do camera or lens specific competitions, as it's the case here, and rather try to keep things as open as possible to give everybody a chance to submit. But as this is honoring the 175 year Petzval legacy I feel that it makes sense to have it limited to people shooting with this lens, as there were specific LC-A competitions for it's anniversary.
powoui · 2015-09-09 15:54
@pan_dre Yeap i totally understand that :) So i tried to find a friend of a friend that maybe can share his lens, at less to finally try it and maybe to participate, but didn't find anyone, too bad. Tant pis :)
poglad · 2015-09-10 10:03
@pan_dre @powoui I understand that it's a Petzval lens celebration, but seriously - the prize is a Petzval lens, and you can only enter if you already own one??
poglad · 2015-09-10 10:04
@pan_dre @powoui it should have been a competition about bokeh, enter your best bokeh picture and the person who wins the lens can then make even better bokeh in future!
tomas_bates · 2015-09-10 11:34
@poglad - The main reason we are running the competition is to enable people who have a Petzval Lens to win a chance to be featured in big, prestigious exhibitions we are planning to happen over the world during the next year. Again, this is a reason why it's a specific competition for people who already own a Petzval lens. Additionally, for the prizing of a Petzval lens, we will also happily offer store vouchers to an equivalent value if the winner does not want the New Petzval 58 Lens prize. Although, many people who have the 1st lens would like the New Petzval 58 since it offer swirly bokeh control and a different focal length - it is not the same lens :-)
pan_dre · 2015-09-10 14:41
@poglad @powoui @hervinsyah @carolebrown @lomaugustry @alienmeatsack Also for the filesize, if you don't have the photo scanned at the resolution required you can still submit it now and it case it wins rescan in the bigger format that is required.
alienmeatsack · 2015-09-10 15:54
Every image I've tried to submit has told me it was too small. This is very disappointing.
alienmeatsack · 2015-09-10 15:56
Every single image in my huge library of photos is ineligible. I scan at 1200 dpi or 2400 dpi and I shoot film not digital. Being left out of this hurts my feelings as a contributor to this site, owner of the expensive lens, and film user. Like I said, very disappointed.
lomaugustry · 2015-09-10 16:13
@alienmeatsack you can probably upload the film shots to lightroom and resize them ?
alienmeatsack · 2015-09-10 16:15
Photos must be at least 300dpi and 5000 pixels at the longest side. -- a 35mm film frame scanned at 2400dpi is only 3400x2268. That is literally the max resolution my expensive Epson scans at safely. How is this contest fair to film people in any way shape or form? Yes I am upset and yes I am voicing my concerns. I am a regular here, I contribute FILM to this FILM website, I scan at 2400 DPI and yet my work is not acceptable for this contest just like the last Petzval contest.

You would have to scan at 4000 DPI to even qualify, that is well outside of most scanners range before the quality drops way off and you get pixelation. My scanner was not cheap, it does amazing high res photos. Being left out again really makes this film lover and Lomography contributor feel like I've been kicked in the stomach.
alienmeatsack · 2015-09-10 16:18
@lomaugustry Even a 120 sized film frame would not reach 5000 pixels on any side until it was scanned at 2400 DPI, so 35mm, which is the only way to use the Petzval lens, is simply impossible to scan at the size requirements they are asking for. Well, unless you want to pay someone a lot of money to scan it on a high end scanner.

Sure, I could upsize them, and they'd turn into mushy crap, pardon my French. I refuse to do that to my work. This is my last post in this competition as I am sure everyone knows I am angry and feel excluded because of the ridiculous size requirements.
lomaugustry · 2015-09-10 17:24
@pan_dre @alienmeatsack Why is this sizing requirement so high? That basically puts film shooters out of the competition.
alienmeatsack · 2015-09-11 13:52
@lomaugustry - @pan_dre said he changed the requirements to help more people fit into the size requirements but none of mine work still. #leftout
powoui · 2015-09-11 14:27
@tomas_bates Yeap that's what i understand :) I wish good luck to everyone, and if the winner doesn't want anymore his first petzval lens, he can write to me ahaha :p okay i'm joking, have a nice day ! :)
tomas_bates · 2015-09-11 14:41
@powoui - haha, yep who knows, maybe the winner is feeling generous :-) Have a good day too!
pan_dre · 2015-09-14 14:45
@lomaugustry Is it working for you?
pan_dre · 2015-09-14 14:45
@alienmeatsack It's weird...i have no problem with my photos...I will have another look at it! Definitely not intended to leave anybody out!
alienmeatsack · 2015-09-14 19:05
@pan_dre It's possible the works I'm picking from are 1200dpi, but that still should be plenty big to submit. I've printed these pretty large before without problems. Haven't done anything recently with the new scanner at 2400 with the Petzval to try and see if they "take". I will see what happens if I look through some of my recent scans in 35mm that are 2400 to see if the submit at least is not an X and we might know better that it's a resolution issue and not just the site disliking me. :D
armandoespinoza · 2015-09-14 21:30
If it is about the celebration of Petzval, can I enter images taken with 110 year old petzvals ? or is it specifically about the new branding of the new lens and not about the petzval design,
lomaugustry · 2015-09-15 02:13
@pan_dre I haven't entered. I'd like to but I might not receive my photos before the competition ends I have s few digital photos but they aren't anything to write home about. Besides I don't have a scanner and my lab doesn't scan at the required definition.
lomaugustry · 2015-09-15 02:13
@pan_dre I haven't entered. I'd like to but I might not receive my photos before the competition ends I have s few digital photos but they aren't anything to write home about. Besides I don't have a scanner and my lab doesn't scan at the required definition.
armandoespinoza · 2015-09-17 14:22
I guess is not about the petzval design and the swirl, but more about the branding of the new lens. thanks for not responding as it clarifies what I suspected
pearlgirl77 · 2015-09-22 11:34
it's hard to decide which pictures i want to upload :P
umeshu · 2015-09-27 07:53
Okay! I entered the competition! I just hope I can defend analog photography a little bit here... There are so many wonderful (digital) shots! I mean, I have nothing against digital photo but one drawback is that it requires very expensive full-frame cameras to maximize the bokeh power of new Petzval. Also, I own new Petzval since a couple of months only and I tried to shoot flowers and portraits... But recently, I try to find new subjects... If you have some ideas, please advise!
Anyway, I could enter with my photos scanned at low resolution today... but these pics won't be accepted, probably!
Good luck everyone!
jasonmoore · 2015-09-28 03:20
the deadline is 30-9-2015, when the result will be released?
walterhisownself · 2015-09-29 02:27
I entered three of mine for now. I'll scan more of my negatives (real film, yes!!) tomorrow and submit more.
cbrinkley51 · 2015-10-07 02:11
What is the date for the results announcement? Thanks
athensboy · 2015-11-07 20:14
Any update on a date for the results or have I missed a different article?
zkaz · 2015-11-11 15:41
Any update on a date for the results or have I missed a different article?
pearlgirl77 · 2015-12-17 08:33
and the winner is?!?!?
candeeland · 2015-12-17 18:20
Who is the winner?
peterh · 2016-01-05 10:43
I'd like to know the winner, too!?
pearlgirl77 · 2016-01-20 19:09
@ICEQUEENUBIA is there a winner anytime? ;)
sandravo · 2016-02-15 00:49
@pan_dre Was there ever a winner selected?
swoononeone · 2016-05-09 18:58
So many great images. Can someone post a link to the results page listing the winners and their pictures?
candeeland · 2016-06-04 16:45
Yes @swoononeone, this would be a great idea. But there was no winner announced til now. @pearlgirl77 and I are waiting desperatly for the results. No answer from Lomography, that's really sad. :(
pearlgirl77 · 2016-06-05 08:13
@candeeland to ignore isn't a good way!
zkaz · 2016-06-20 22:18
lomography fake competition.
i think they create this just for 'petzval marketing' needs :)

bye l o m o
candeeland · 2016-06-27 07:54
That's a joke! What's about: "the future is analogue"? I'm sad, Lomography.... www.lomography.com/magazine/321792-175-years-of-petzval-leg… @zkaz @pearlgirl77, @swoononeone @sandravo @pan_dre @icequeenubia @peterh @athensboy