{"id":1176,"date":"2024-08-05T21:58:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T19:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/negativnacestach.cz\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:53:26","slug":"kodak-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/negativnacestach.cz\/en\/kodak-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"Kodak Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We learned what are those pictorialisms in my previous article here<\/a>. However, among all the confusion about knee menisci, the fact that I like it soft and where one can legally apply vaseline,\u00a0the key information got lost: what started all this, who the hell is the cornerstone\u00a0around which the temple of my photographic ingenuity has been built. Well, it came like a bolt from the blue and it was nobody else but Mr. Portrait Kodak 305mm f4.5 himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The design is anything but standard. At the back sits a meniscus element (see below), in front of it an aperture and that's it. To the uninitiated, the lens looks incomplete, like someone forgot to install the front group. The downside is the blades, tricky little metal fuckers, mechanically unprotected from the harsh world around (which is the same with glass, well, that's what we have caps and filters for). The upside is that the lens body and even the blades themselves act as a lenshood for the rear element so you don't need to mount anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides the barrel version (no shutter), there's also a shuttered variant in an Ilex Universal No. 5 Synchro, limited to a slightly slower f4.8 because the shutter opening just isn't big enough for full speed. There's also a rarer, longer sibling, the Kodak Portrait 405mm f4.5, found only in shutterless form.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Only a few lenses have the same glass-aperture tandem, for example Pinkham & Smith, Wollaston, Spencer, Kalosat or the ultra-mega-rare and unattainable Struss. The winter and long evenings are coming, spend them with this excellent three-part epic article about SF lenses here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n