A small collection of photos taken with Original Lensbaby and Lensbaby 2.0 lenses.
Copyright © 2005-2007 NK Guy
http://photonotes.org/reviews/lensbaby/gallery/
This page consists of a variety of photos I’ve taken using the Original Lensbaby and Lensbaby 2.0 products. They’re posted here to accompany my review of the two lenses.
Grand Union Canal. London’s Little Venice, UK
Looking upstream towards the houseboat moorings where I lived at the time. Former tollhouse on the left. Original Lensbaby, I think with no aperture ring in place, EOS 10D.
Sunflower. Zaragoza, Spain
Original Lensbaby, probably f/5.6 or so, EOS 10D. A boring sky makes this a not entirely successful photo, but it does emphasize the way the centre sharpness and focus falloff leads the eye to the centre of the subject. Slight contrast enhancement in Photoshop.
Bronze boar. Florence, Italy
Lensbaby 2.0, aperture f/4, EOS 5D. The Lensbaby was great here at blurring and taking attention away from the background clutter of the market stalls behind.
Art installation. Docklands, London, UK
Lensbaby 2.0, aperture f/4, EOS 5D. This is actually an example of the way metering can be tricky - this shot is a bit overexposed, despite the exposure compensation that I applied. This shot actually worked better with a long telephoto, which minimized the blank spaces between the lights.
Rowboats. River Avon, Bath, UK
Group of Edwardian-styled rowboats on the river Avon. It’s sort of veering towards cheese, but the gauzy romantic nostalgic thing works here, I think. Taken with an Original Lensbaby, EOS 10D. I don’t recall which aperture setting - possibly no aperture ring at all. Slight contrast enhancement in Photoshop to punch up the colour.
Tomb of Salvador Dalí. Figueres, Spain
Crypt of the Dalí Museum, where the artist is said to be buried. The light levels in the room were extremely low, making ordinary photography very difficult, and I couldn’t set up a tripod. So by using the Lensbaby I sort of masked the problem. The picture’s pretty blurry, but with a Lensbaby it’s going to be a bit blurry anyhow. Original Lensbaby with no aperture ring installed, EOS 10D.
Gudgeon. Bradford on Avon, UK
Lensbaby 2.0, aperture f/4, EOS 5D. An example of how the area of selective focus can be tilted off-centre. The fish on the weathervane (the "gudgeon") is in perfect focus, with everything else blurring away.
Bridge house. Bradford on Avon, UK
Lensbaby 2.0, aperture f/4, EOS 5D. Another example of how the Lensbaby can lend a sense of timelessness to a photograph. The bridge house was originally used as a small chapel when constructed in the 17th century, then oddly enough became a small prison lockup. Now the bridge is sadly choked with traffic.
Leaning tower. Pisa, Italy
Lensbaby 2.0, aperture f/4, EOS 5D. Pisa’s famous leaning tower. It was being cleaned at the time, so part of it was wrapped in plastic. By using the selective focus of the Lensbaby I was able to blur out that section, making it slightly less obvious.
Temple. Side, Turkey
Original Lensbaby, but I don’t remember which aperture ring. EOS 10D. A glum sky at sunset. Focus tilted towards the upper right corner.
Duomo. Florence, Italy
A popular thing with Internet photographers right now is faking tilt-shift lens photos. This involves taking a regular picture and processing it in Photoshop to simulate the narrow plane of focus that can be an effect of a tilt-shift lens. The result is something which almost looks bizarrely like an incredibly detailed toy or model. A shot of a town square from a tall building, for example, can look like a model railway scene. The Lensbaby can emulate this look since it has genuine, if limited, tilt-shift abilities. Take this photo of the Duomo in Florence (Firenze), Italy. A vast building which looks almost like a wedding cake model. Lensbaby 2.0 with the f/4 aperture ring, EOS 5D.
Fire engine. London, UK
Or this very much full sized fire engine, which turned up on my street to answer a false alarm while I was writing this review. The magic of the tilt lens somehow makes it look exactly like a super-detailed scale model. Lensbaby 2.0 with the f/5.6 aperture ring, EOS 5D.
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