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Lensbaby
Review Date: 16th April 2004
Introduction
 The
Lensbaby is the brainchild of professional photographer Craig
Strong, who invented the Lensbabies Flexible Lens Mounting
System (to give it it's full name) in an effort to replace
his Holga film camera with a digital equivalent. It is described
on the Lensbaby website as "the hybrid love children
of an old-fashioned bellows camera and an up-tight tilt-shift
lens", producing photographs with " the same soft,
roughed-up look produced by a Holga". I've never used
a Holga before, so I didn't really know what to expect from
the Lensbaby, but I was anticipating trying out a new photographic
method that would produce unique results and actually be fun.
Just what I needed after a few weeks of struggling to take
any photographs at all, and potentially another good idea
for my recent "Beating
the Photography Blues" article. So does the Lensbaby
live up to its billing? Find out in my review.
Price
The Lensbaby currently costs $96 for either the Canon or
Nikon version - that's only £53 at the current (favourable)
US dollar to UK sterling exchange rate.
The Lensbaby is available in two mount types, for Nikon and
Canon SLRS, and will fit the following camera models:
- The Nikon F-Mount fits all Nikon SLRs as well as:
Fujifilm S1 Pro & S2 Pro; and Kodak DCS 100, DCS 200,
DCS 420, DCS 460, DCS 410, DCS 315, DCS 330, DCS 620, DCS
660, DCS 720x, DCS 760, DCS 760M, & DCS 14n.
- The Canon EF Mount fits all Canon EOS SLR bodies as well
as:
Kodak DCS-1, DCS 520, & DCS 560.
Design
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| Lensbaby with end cap and lens cap fitted |
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| Lensbaby with end cap and lens cap not fitted |
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| Lensbaby mounted on Canon EOS 10D |
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Features and Ease-of-Use
The Lensbaby has a basic, but clever, design that consists
of a camera mount at one end, lens tubing in the middle, and
an aperture ring and focusing collar at the other end.
The Lensbaby mounts on your camera in the same way as your
other camera lenses. On the Canon fitting Lensbaby that I
have reviewed, there is a small white mark on the mount, which
you line up with the mark on your camera body and then turn
clockwise to attach it. The Lensbaby is supplied with an end
cap to protect the rear element when it is stored away, again
just as with any other lens.
The lens tubing is the part of the lensbaby that allows you
to control the effect that it gives. It can be compressed
or extended by pulling or pushing the focusing collar at the
end of the Lensbaby. This in turn controls what is in focus,
with fully compressed focusing on infinity and full extended
focusing about 1 foot ahead. To focus on subjects that are
between these distances, you have to partly compress the Lensbaby.
Compressing and extending the lens tubing in a straight line
will focus on anything that is in the middle of the scene.
If you want to focus off-centre, the lens tubing can be bent
in any direction, with the rule of thumb being to bend the
Lensbaby towards the area of the picture that you want to
have in focus. This is the a little trickier than just compressing
and extending in a straight line, as you have to control both
how much the Lensbaby is compressed and where it is pointing
at the same time, and it's easy to overshoot and get everything
out of focus. With a little bit of practice, though, you will
soon feel in full control of focusing the Lensbaby.
As with any camera system, the aperture controls what is
and isn't in focus. The Lensbaby is supplied with an aperture
ring which gives a fairly wide-open aperture of f/5.6. If
you completely remove it using the supplied removal tool,
you get an aperture of f/2.8. You can also purchase additional
aperture rings that give apertures of f/4 and f/8. An aperture
of f/5.6 is described as the most versatile in the Lensbaby
system, so you may be happy enough with the default aperture
ring.
After about 1 hour of using the Lensbaby, I had figured out
how the Lensbaby operates. The most difficult thing that I
found from an ease-of-use point of view was having to manually
focus. I'm one of those photographers who always use auto-focus
whenever possible, so suddenly having to judge if something
was in focus without having the camera to rely on came as
something of a shock. So much so that this proved to be more
of a problem than actually using the Lensbaby! I did find
that the combination of the Lensbaby and manual focusing slowed
the whole picture taking process down, which caused me to
concentrate more on what I was doing.
The Lensbaby is also supplied with a small manual, an aperture
ring removal tool and a very smart-looking, metal lens cap
with the Lensbaby logo on the front. The general construction
is very good, with everything except the bendy plastic lens
tubing being constructed of metal. It's a simple design without
too many moving parts, so it should prove to be durable.
Images
Here are a few sample images that I took during my time with
the Lensbaby, using it with my Canon EOS 10D. They may not
be the greatest photos in the world, but they do give an idea
of what can be achieved with the Lensbaby:
Conclusion
(out of 5 stars)
The Lensbaby is obviously not something that you will use
all the time, but it does give a unique perspective on the
world that is a radical departure from the precision of digital
photography. At a time when people seem to be obsessed with
megapixels and resolution, it's very refreshing to use a product
whose charm lies in creating an imprecise effect, which can't
be replicated with imaging software simply because it is so
imprecise. Being able to control what is in focus in your
photographs from left to right as well as back to front opens
up a whole new way of seeing the world, especially if you've
never used a Holga or bellows camera before. The Lensbaby
is small enough, cheap enough and useful enough to
warrant a place in any photographer's camera bag.
Related Links
Lensbabies
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