When Lomography announced that it was recreating a classic 19th-century lens for modern day DSLR's I was super excited. At the time, I wasn't too familiar with the effect it produced, but I did have a heavy interest in vintage lenses, primarily because of their price point. When I went to check out their Kickstarter campaign, I had missed the boat on the "very very special price" they had for early adopters. The only way to get the lens was by paying the $400 price tag they had listed, which was far more than I had paid for any other vintage lens of mine. Once I figured that I'd have to pay that heavy price tag I was no longer interested...

The hype died down, the effect was cool, but it wasn't $400 cool. I didn't think about the lens again until they actually started shipping. Emily Soto, a respected photographer that I follow was one of the ambassadors for the product (so I believe), and I love the look she produces with the lens. It instantly sparked my interest. Unfortunately, the price tag was, even more, Lomography was asking $599 for the bokeh master, which no longer seemed expensive, but my use for it would be very limited, it was more of a want than a need.

At that point, I started to do some research. I wanted to know which lenses could also provide a similar look. After all, this is a remake, so there had to be something out there. What I came to find that there were other lenses, some equally if not more expensive, while others were dirt cheap. While the lenses did produce a similar look, they all had one thing that separated them from the Petzval itself... They were cosmetically as beautiful. But this is about performance right? Who cares about the exterior?

The first lens I came across may be an obvious find to you all as it was for me. The Helios 44-2 is one of the most popular vintage lenses out. I believe if it wasn't issued as a kit lens the price itself would be 3-4x higher. Thankfully for us, it can be picked up for as cheap as $40. This to me is the best bang for your buck, not only does this lens give you the swirly bokeh effect, but it also gives you a pretty decent portrait lens.

What I found is that finding a lens to produce the look, isn't the hard... It's producing the look that actually takes a bit of skill. I'm assuming on the Petzval things work right out of the gate? Could be wrong, though. Either way for almost $500 less I'm willing to put in a little effort.

Here's how I was able to effectively recreate the Petzval look.