One of the striking differences between Canada and the warmer places I was visiting is the trees. I found myself taking many photos of the shapes that I'm not used to. This sense of alien forms lent itself perfectly to seeing with my new toy, a Lensbaby 3G. Here are some of my favourites from my trip, and some thoughts on this unique lens.


"overland"

Calling a Lensbaby "Manual Focus" is almost a euphemism. The first and second generations are simply lens elements mounted to a flexible bellows that's moved free-form to focus the image. The 3G version can work almost like a normal lens, since the flexible barrel can be locked in place, and have focus controlled with a second mechanism that gives some fine-tuning controls. Combined with the small viewfinders on most DSLRs, this is still an imperfect solution. Certainly sharp focus can be achieved with a Lensbaby, but it's slow and not as much fun.


"windswept"

Changing the apertures on a Lensbaby not only controls depth of field, it also controls how much of the lens's natural blur affects the image. At f/2 or f/2.8 on a 4/3 format camera, with its generous depth of field and small sensor, it takes considerable talent or luck (mine's the latter) to get anything in focus at all. I can't imagine using it on a full-frame 35mm camera, but I do know someone who does it. With film. He's a brave soul.


"watching the sunset"

The look of the lensbaby makes it perfect for impressionistic or 'painterly' images. The analog blur that the lens introduces looks very different from anything I've seen through photoshop. Its uniqueness also makes it a difficult lens to use well: the look of its photos are too different to co-exist comfortably with 'normal' photos in a series, but like any special effect, it can be tiresome if it's used excessively.

Finally, having a lensbaby encourages further experimentation. The photo below would be an unremarkable image if it was shot with a normal lens, and I like it more after I've played around with the exposure and colour balance.





I'm still getting used to the effects and techniques of the lensbaby, but I'm sure that it will have an important, if small, place in my personal photography. I can see it as being a great lens to carry on a second body, or to experiment with when all of the usual photos have been taken. It's certainly helping me to see differently, which is always a good thing.

Nice review Matt - I love that sunset shot.

I like #2. Matt - although usually I find LensBabys a bit like smearing vasiline on the lens for a home made vignette. Solid concept for a photo series.

Thanks very much. Those two are among my favourite photos from the trip.

Toad, I can certainly see the similarity in the end result. The difference comes in the process, which allows the area of "sharp" (if you're lucky or talented) focus to be placed in different positions in the frame. None of the first three photos have been cropped significantly, and the fourth/fifth has had the right side of the frame cropped. You can see how the focus point changes in position in each image. This is impossible with static techniques like plastic wrap or vaseline, even when the look is similar.

That reminds me of something that's so fundamentally different with a lensbaby that I actually forgot to mention it. For years I've been in the habit of using centre-point focusing and recomposing each shot. That's impossible with this lens because there's no plane of focus. Instead there's a "sweet spot" that can be moved around the frame, but not all the way to the edge. (The Sunset shot above is pushing it.) This is done by tilting the lens, which throws the rest of the image further into the optical aberrations. The beauty of the 3G version is that the lens can be locked in these positions and the effects can be further refined. Below is a non-tree (post-tree) photo that I took to explore how the lensbaby works. The subject itself is in sympathy to the monotonous and headache-inducing effect that new lensbaby owners can have on friends and forum-mates.



I'll try not to get too carried away, I promise.

(I have to also add that the time that I spent adding keywords to every photo that I took while I was away has made it very easy to look through the hundreds of photos and quickly produce a meaningful series. I have 385 photos taken with the lensbaby, 179 photos of trees, and 65 photos of trees taken with a lensbaby that rank at 1-star or above. (And 125 photos of my partner and traveling companion. Don't tell her that she ranks below trees.) Culling 65 images down to three or four is simple, finding those same individuals among 2500 unsorted photos is daunting.)

Very cool - the first pic almost makes the tree look "miniature"...

Thanks, Jules. It's funny that you should say that, because someone else just made a similar comment elsewhere. Something about a "bonsai" effect. I hadn't seen it before, but it's true.