Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2012, highlighting a fascinating photography experiment that merged early 20th century optics with what was then modern digital sensor technology.
Instead of recreating the retro look using an app, or simply buying an old camera, Hollywood video director Jason Bognacki decided to combine the best of both worlds by attaching an old camera lens to his modern digital camera.
The Quest for Genuine Retro Photos
Making photos look retro has become a massive craze sweeping the world, with mobile phone apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic proving hugely popular for adding digital vintage filters.
Jason Bognacki went a step further. He attached a Piccolette Contessa-Nettel camera lens made in 1919 to his modern digital camera.
The director managed to fuse the two very different technologies together to create his bizarre looking hybrid camera. “I’ve had this Piccolette Contessa-Nettel folding camera for ages,” he said. “It has been a great piece of photo history sitting on my shelf.”
Stunning Vintage Results
He was curious if it could make pictures again, so he hacked it onto his Canon 5D Mark II. The results are incredibly atmospheric.
The pictures, including snaps of his dog and landscape shots, became an online hit, recreating the retro look of older pictures in a high resolution digital format.
Mr Jason Bognacki, who also works as a photographer, has experimented with dozens of other vintage cameras and posted the results online on his photography blog.
The Piccolette Contessa-Nettel Lens
The Zeiss manufactured lens on the Piccolette has a fixed focal length of 7.5cm and a maximum aperture of f/6.3. For a piece of glass manufactured almost a century prior to this experiment, the sharpness and unique character of the resulting images are nothing short of amazing.
