Since we were talking about LensBaby lenses yesterday, I was inspired to put mine on the camera tonight when we went out for dinner. I was outside running around with my son as the adults were talking inside, and had some fun shooting while he explored the surroundings.
Some of you will know and will have used LensBaby lenses, but many of you will not, as can be seen in the comments in yesterday’s post. The lights in there are just obviously not from a normal lens. They would just blur into big spots, where with a LensBaby, they blur into big, oblong spots. Hmm, words just do not help much, sometimes. It is the feel of it all.
The other thing I appreciate about my LensBaby is that I can set aside my tack sharp tendencies. Especially without any aperture added in (funky, I know, but you manually put the aperture in there) and running with the base f/2, most of the shot is going to be out of focus most of the time. I like the general lack of clarity in this photo. I am freed to just enjoy the whole scene instead of being forced to a focus spot.
Yes, you can browse through many different examples of LensBaby photos in places like the LensBaby Flickr page, but given yesterday’s brief mention and the folks who did not quite know what it was, I wanted to give another example here.
Your really making me want to play with a LensBaby!
There funky awesome, man! It stretches my mind, breaking me out of my super-crisp-photo-seeking tendencies. I can play with composition and simply do things impossible with “normal” lenses.
Their website has some good ways of explaining how things work, but I also found this video on YouTube a couple days ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvL0j8BFasU
Oh…just an additional warning. When I use any manual focus lens, including the LensBaby, my camera’s meter does not work, meaning, I have to guess the exposure and check it on the LCD to get it close. Using raw, it matters a little less. I just try to get it a little on the dark side, then if I have a bright surprise later, I am probably still ok. It sure makes you more aware of light changes; it also ruins photos when you forget.
Most cameras’ meters will work, but I just want to warn you from my own experience. You can check on DPReview.com or some such site for your specific camera’s compatibility. In DPReview, go to the review for your camera > specifications, and look under “lens compatibility”. Hope it does not say something like this: “Non-CPU : Can be used in exposure mode M, but exposure meter does not function.”