Exploring the Lens Baby

full article and images at: http://www.photocritic.org/2007/lensbaby/

A good while ago (see this post), I discovered the phenomenon of the lensbaby lens. Basically, it’s a bendable lens that you can use for creative effect. It means that you get what essentially is a tilt/shift lens which allows you to work with creative selective focus, extreme macro photography, and lots of creative freedom.
I recently got my grubby paws on a Lensbaby, and ever since, I’ve been a complete convert. I recently spent 4 days exploring Madrid, and despite of having a lot of expensive glass, I ended up only using the Lensbaby lens throughout the whole trip.
Using the Lensbaby 3G
The lens I have is the Lensbaby 3G, which is the newest and funkiest Lensbaby created to date. It’s a funky-looking little lens which has a vast range of versitility. You can use it like the original lensbaby, by just squeezing it (to focus) and bending it (for selective focus) by hand, or you can lock it off. When you lock the collar, the little sticks that stick out through the lens come to their own: They’re actually threaded, so you can twist them to fine-adjust the focus and selective focus of the lens. In addition, there’s a focussing ring you can use to get focus right, rather then compressing or stretching the whole bellow.
For something that basically started out as a toy, the Lensbaby is growing into its own shoes as a pretty damn important and impressive player in the photography scene.
For Aperture, the Lensbaby has a really clever solution, too: instead of a shutter-based aperture, the lens uses small black circular bits that are held in place in front of the lens element by magnets! It sounds completely ridiculous, but it works surprisingly well.
Getting used to the Lensbaby takes a long time, perhaps because it initially seems so damn counter-intuitive. Focussing, selective focus, and tilt/shift theory is pretty confusing stuff. But then the same happens to you as what happened to me: Suddenly, it just clicks, and the whole thing becomes a three-dimentional photography experience. You have the shutter speed, ISO, the disc-based aperture control, and the bendy-lens goodness.


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