JPG Magazine: Stories: My Precious: Lensbaby... my favorite lens

My Precious

Lensbaby... my favorite lens

Lensbaby by The Lensbaby Company

By penny nannini

7 May 2007

I can't believe that no one has written about the Lensbaby yet. It's one of my very favorite toys! Everyone I know that has one absolutely loves it! When I got mine a couple of years ago, I couldn't put it down. It went with me everywhere that my camera went. In fact I don't think that I took it off of my camera for about six months.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Lensbaby, it's a selective focus lens that was designed by Craig Strong (you should Google him). It's small and has a bellows. It comes with a set of aperture rings ranging from f2.8-f8, and instructions. It's made to fit just about any camera. You chose where to place the focus by holding it by the outer ring and pushing, pulling, and bending it around until you see what you want in the view finder. It takes a little practice (well for me a lot of practice), but the outcome is magical. The images have a beautiful "soft, glowing" look to them. Another great feature is the price... they're very affordable. The original Lensbaby (which is what I have) is only $96.00.

There are a couple of other options that you can buy from the Lensbaby website. The second lens is the LB2. It's similar to the original but has a more defined "sweet spot"($150.00). The newest (and hopefully next addition to my camera bag) is the G3. It allows you to lock in the focus so that you can get longer exposures along with a finer focus ($270.00). Other accessories include the macro kit and the wide angle/telephoto kit. You can buy them as a package for $114.00. I have both. I really enjoy the macro kit, and have used it often. The wide angle/telephoto kit is my newest purchase. I haven't used it much yet,although I did shoot some of the photos for this article with them. All ofthe products that I have bought from Lensbaby have been very good quality, fairly easy to use, and very durable. I accidentally dropped mine and watched it bounce a few times on the concrete. When I picked it up was shocked to find it undamaged.

Not long after I received my Lensbaby, I went for a photo shoot with my son to try it out.We came across an abandoned prison here in Nashville. It turned out to be the prison that was used in the movies "The Last Castle" with Robert Redford, and "The Green Mile" with Tom Hanks ( both good movies by the way). We spent a couple of hours there exploring and shooting pictures. After processing the pictures there were a few that we really liked so I decided to join the Lensbaby online forum. The photographers on the site are unbelievable. Most everyone there offers kind, thoughtful,and helpful comments on your images. It's a great site, and I feel that I have learned a lot from them. I've been hooked ever since.

I have included a couple of my first pictures of the prison trip, along with others that I have taken since then. There are also some that I used the macro kit and the wide angle attachment on so that you could see the difference the accessories make. I hope that you will go to lensbabies.com and take a look at all of the wonderful images on the forum...then get your own Lensbaby!

Just a final note... the Tennessee State Penitentiary that we visited is government property, and has since been locked up. There is such a rich history associated with this prison that they have had to post an armed guard to keep all of us photographers out.

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