Lensbaby Composer

I turned 30 last weekend and my lovely wife gave me a Lensbaby Composer, I finally had a chance earlier this week to take it out for a test run. Those of you who may or may not know what this particular lens is, I suggest you check out the website and watch the video, read about it a bit. I don't think the lens is for everyone, but I am excited by the creative possibilities it offers me.

The lens itself is about 1 1/2 times the size of the 50mm 1.8 I often shoot with, the lower half connected the the camera, the top half rotating freely on a ball. Showing it to some friends this weekend it was interesting that their first impression was that it would "tilt" around a corner or something. My impression of the lens is that is selectively chooses the focus point, depending on where you rotate the lens. Example:



I started this shot with the lens on center, the focus on the upper / middle of the Temple, then I tilted the lens up to make the point of focus be the Angel Moroni. Notice how he is in perfect focus and the rest of the temple is more and more out of focus the further you get away from the focal point.

Depending on what camera you shoot with (they currently only offer Nikon and Canon) you will probably have to shoot in full manual mode(luckily you can also shoot in Aperture priority mode with canons). You actually change the aperture in the camera by putting inserts (included with the lens) on top of the glass itself, I have yet to shoot with anything but the 2.8 insert, so I can't offer much in the way that it changed the photo. It is also 100% manual focus, this is a lens where you do all the work!

Obviously the lens is going to have its limitations, you wont be pulling out super crisp landscape or action shots. But what you will get it a creative lens with a bunch of different options to continually enhance your creativity, they offer everything from a maro kit, wide angle kits and even different optic kits to change the clarity of the image (plastic and pinhole optics). I have even seen shots where people have used scrapbook punched to make shaped aperture kits that leave star shaped lights in the picture (they have some examples on the website). The lens seems to be a natural fit to flower photography and I am beyond excited to see what horizons it opens up for me with vintage type photography. I am sure I will be writing more and more about this lens in the future, but these are just a few first impressions, and now for a few sample pictures.