Petri 55mm f1.8 - That old brand you might not know about - Lens review

 At the end of 2019 I was at this event where they sell a bunch of old cameras and lenses and obviously I bought a few, but among the various items on display for the first time I saw many lenses and cameras branded Petri.

 Initially I thought it was some obscure Italian brand but, as one of the vendors explained to me, it's actually Japanese. I did a little bit of research and turns out it was established in 1907, so it's pretty damn old, but eventually went bankrupt in the 80s and the brand was acquired by Cosina, which is slightly more known in the vintage community

 So I browsed a little bit the selection of cameras and lenses they had and eventually decided to buy this 55 millimeters f1.8 mostly because I didn't know the brand, it was cheap and this specific one comes with an M42 mount instead of the Petri mount, which I guess no one makes an adapter for.

 And, yeah, you might be starting to see a pattern here: I have quite the habit of buying lenses I know nothing about.

Because it's fun.

 That same day I had with me my camera and an M42 adapter, so I started trying out the new lenses and the Petri didn't really struck me in any way. In fact it seemed to be quite soft but, you know, it's a standard 50ish 1.8 vintage lens so I wasn't surprised by that.

 But in the following months, trying it out a little bit more, getting in deep with it, I started to like it more and more.

 It's not unique, it's not different, it is quite a standard 50 millimeters 1.8, the classic lens you would find on an old camera, but probably for that reason it has some appeal to me, it's ordinary in some ways.

 And in some others quite unordinary ‘cause, you know, bankrupted brand that doesn't exist anymore, yeah, it's quite down my alley.

 So all things considered, how is this lens? Well it's actually pretty good, it's better than I originally expected.

 Chromatic aberration is present but not really relevant, barrel distortion is mostly absent, colors are pretty standard, nothing to write home about, but they're not bad either. Usability and handling are just fine, it might need a bit a little bit of lubrication, but nothing major. There are no fungus, no overall problems with the lenses or the mechanics so it works perfectly and it also turns out it is pretty sharp, if you just stop it down a little bit. You don't need to go down to f/4 or f/5.6, at f/2.8 it is already really, really sharp, especially in the center, obviously, but it gets way sharper than I have anticipated so: well done Petri!

 At the end of the day, are these Petri lenses hidden gems?

 Maybe not, but they are solid lenses and if I happen to stumble upon another of them I might buy it, because they are good and they are usually cheaper than other name brands because no one really knows about them. So if you want to save 5-10 euros more and it's a valid option
 I mean if they were fine back then, I don't see why they shouldn't be good enough for today's standards. And they do are good, so you might want to consider Petri for your next purchase.

  As always, let me know your experience with this lens, if you have any question feel free to ask in the comments below and don’t forget to check the full video for all the samples.