Lensbaby 2.0

[Diane B]

I didn't see it anywhere. I've seen 300D/20D samples that were
interesting, but I wonder if the sharp portion ends up being too
tiny a fraction of the whole frame to be useful...

David, I'm no expert at the LB, but the newer version, 2.0, has aperture rings to f/8 and with those you get a much larger area of in focus. In fact, a quite large area, but this will also be based on whether you can pull the little lens back enough and hold it steadily for focus while you click the shutter button. For me, no mean trick. I've seen some that are very much in focus. There was one person that did a whole shoot of employee portraits for a job for instance and another I saw with just small areas of outside blur. Still--its really dependent on how well you can learn to maneuver the lens--and on those aperture rings that drop onto the lens.
See how they work here.....
http://www.lensbabies.com/pages/using.php

and several galleries that are better than the average to give you an idea
http://www.lensbabies.com/pages/gallery.php?smith
http://www.lensbabies.com/pages/gallery.php?dyer

and a good review by Bob Atkins.
http://www.photo.net/equipment/lensbaby/

To be truthful--what I really want is a T/S and I'm not sure how much I'll use this, but its totally an experimental lens for very limited use--on my part.

--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic/galleries

 

[David J. Littleboy]

David, I'm no expert at the LB, but the newer version, 2.0, has
aperture rings to f/8 and with those you get a much larger area of
in focus. In fact, a quite large area, but this will also be based
on whether you can pull the little lens back enough and hold it
steadily for focus while you click the shutter button. For me, no
mean trick.

Hmm. Sounds like a pain, but maybe more useful than I was worrying.

To be truthful--what I really want is a T/S and I'm not sure how
much I'll use this, but its totally an experimental lens for very
limited use--on my part.

Yep. The Lensbaby is just for fun. (I have the Zork adapter for my Mamiya 645 lenses on order, so I'll have 35mm, 55mm, and 110mm with + - 18 or so mm of shift. No tilt, though.)

--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Anders F Eriksson]

This picture was shot with the original version of the Lensbaby on a 5D at f/2,8 (i.e. wide open). The light falloff is not that bad imo (though this image is cropped left and top side).



I think it's a fun lens to use sometimes, and I only paid $50 for a brand new one (distributor were selling out stock of old version).

 

[misha]

Yeah, well, all I can say is it's the same appeal that Canon's 85mm
f/1.2L has, for about 1/50th the cost. If you don't see the point
of shallow DOF, you won't see the point of a Lensbaby.

When it's sharp, it's very very sharp; and where it's not, it's
blurry...

From the samples I have seen it's not nearly the same as a 85/1.2 - the idea of sharp focus - very blurred fore/background may be the same, but the look is very different.
--
Misha

 

[Robert Catto]

From the samples I have seen it's not nearly the same as a 85/1.2 -
the idea of sharp focus - very blurred fore/background may be the
same, but the look is very different.

Okay, I was stretching it a little - the way the blur radiates from the central point is unique to the Lensbaby, as is the bizarro focussing technique.

But, it's got less CA problems than the 85L!
R

--
Robert Catto, Photographer
Wellington, New Zealand
http://www.catto.co.nz

 

[fuzzytalz]

will work just fine. Just stop down the lens aperture manually, just like any other manual focus lens. I suppose, depending on the adapter, you might not be able to use the aperture at anything other than minimum because closed down is Nikon's default aperture setting.
--
Garland Cary

 

[Thomas Kachadurian]

The lens baby is and has always been a full frame lens. I use it on a 5d and 1Ds all the time.
--
http://www.kachadurian.com

 

[David J. Littleboy]

The lens baby is and has always been a full frame lens. I use it on
a 5d and 1Ds all the time.

Thanks! Exactly what I wanted to hear.

--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Diane B]

I expect I will have some fun with the LB, but I know what it is that I like about shots with T/S--that there is the ability to do this and areas aren't distorted--just out of focus http://www.marktucker.com/r_jackdaniels05/source/williamguitar.html

and notice that the in focus area stretches from foreground to rear.

With the LB--when you focus in an area--the other areas mostly become very distorted as well as OOF.
--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic/galleries

 

[timmah]

A good friend of mine who has been a commercial photographer for decades picked up the Lensbaby (can't remember which version) a couple of months ago, and has been shooting with it on his 1Ds Mark II. We pulled up the results one day to take a look at them, and it blew me away! It is a fickle little thing....if the focus isn't dead on, then the whole image gets a little too soft for my liking. But if you hit the focus dead-on, then the results are absolutely incredible. Granted, it's nothing you can't do in a couple of minutes in Photoshop, but it's kind of nice to have the lens right on the camera.

Actually, I just found out that he did post some of the shots on his website. This is from his first shoot with the lens, I think:



Don't ask about any details other than the body (1DsII), because we didn't really discuss those at all. But in response to how the lens works on a full frame camera, the answer is pretty clear, in my opinion.

 

[Thomas K.]

no text

 

[Wild_Man1]

Years ago, when I taught photography, I used to work with pin hole cameras and then discovered the (Russian I believe) Dianna camera - it was a fixed focus, color corrected lens 120 format little piece of plastic and it became a terrific training ground for "vision" - not photo technique - just pure vision and the lens aberations provided little surprises.

As a matter of fact, the 120 film at the time cost more than the Diana from the flea market vendor--but it provided a visual learning experience much like the pinhole camera--and afterall the difference among most of us is the "vision."

I was in a local camera store months ago and a newly hired kid was telling me about the lens baby and then showed me his portfolio - interesting visually - I did buy one as I realized it produced the same qualities as the Diana camera and depended on the photographers vision...

A little gimmicky I suppose as a tool and certainly not to be overused and yes, I have not found the precise place to use it commercially as of yet and only have a few fun imagines at this point from it and certainly nothing worthy of showing the world.

But thanks to this thread, I will give it another shot (so to speak) since it is the weekend and no model home interiors are scheduled--ahhh for the variety that life and photography has to offer...

 

[Robert Catto]

Thank you, Thomas - I was quietly ignoring the comments about 'blurry' images...but if you want to see some amazing work, check out this guy (mentioned in another comment, below):
http://www.marktucker.com

Wow. Seriously good.
R!

--
Robert Catto, Photographer
Wellington, New Zealand
http://www.catto.co.nz

 

[Thomas K.]

thank you robert for this http://www.marktucker.com link. you know him in person? what do know about him and - even if it's not nice to ask artists about their equipment - do you think he uses lensbaby for some of his pics? i guess so. and obviously he likes to use fast lenses just amazing.
is there still someone who doesn't like blurry images? g
robert, you have other links like this to share? stunning!

and just like mark tucker you are a real expert of "blurry" images. this is exactly the way i want to go. i'm 22 years old so i hope i still have enough time to reach your level!
regards
thomas

Thank you, Thomas - I was quietly ignoring the comments about
'blurry' images...but if you want to see some amazing work, check
out this guy (mentioned in another comment, below):
http://www.marktucker.com

Wow. Seriously good.
R!

--
Robert Catto, Photographer
Wellington, New Zealand
http://www.catto.co.nz

 

[Inge Stubdal]

How much tilt do you need to do something like that? Is this done with one of Canons TS-E lenses?

 

[Robert Catto]

thank you robert for this http://www.marktucker.com link. you know him in
person?

Hi Thomas - no, I just saw the link lower down in this discussion, and didn't actually realise it wasn't posted by him. I wonder now if any of those are Lensbaby images, as opposed to Photoshop or vaseline-on-a-filter images - they're extraordinary in any case, I don't really care how they're done!

and just like mark tucker you are a real expert of "blurry" images.
this is exactly the way i want to go. i'm 22 years old so i hope i
still have enough time to reach your level!

Well, thanks for saying so - but jeepers, I've only been at this seriously for a couple of years myself, so you should be able to catch up pretty quickly, much less by the time you reach the exalted age of 37, like me...
R

--
Robert Catto, Photographer
Wellington, New Zealand
http://www.catto.co.nz