Hermagis Portrait Serie I N°4bis - 1929

Brand : Hermagis
Country : France
Period : 1929
Type : Studio plate camera
Condition : Really good and fully functional
Size : 15x23cm. 2,5kg
Serial Number : 162748
Status : Available for sale.

Hermagis is one of the oldest and most prestigious French optical house.
 Founded in Paris in 1845 in the early years of photography, the optical and build quality of Hermagis's lenses rapidly earned a name for the brand at the top off the industry.

The lens presented here is a classic petzval portrait lens, one of the best seller of Hermagis (Over 50 000 Portraits lenses sold by 1916 !).
Calculated in the middle of the 19th century by Joseph Petzval, the Petzval portrait lens was a revolutionary lens design at the time, introducing the concept of fast lens and wide aperture.
By allowing the picture to be taken significantly faster than before, Petzval lenses rapidly became really popular amongst portraits photographers and stayed a classic for almost a century.

The rendering of Petzval lenses is really specific with a sharp and extremely detailed center and a very strong and characteristic circular bokeh.

Introduced in 1914, the Serie I 4 bis is a 350mm lens with an aperture of about F4. It will cover 13x18cm at full aperture according to Pont & Princelle.
This copy, serial number 162748, was made in 1929 and is in fully working excellent condition.