Lensbaby The Composer for Olympus four thirds mount Digital SLR Cameras

List Price: $269.95 Price: $269.95

Product Details 37 mm threads allow you to attach Lensbaby¿ Macro Kit lenses, wide angle and telephoto conversion lenses, and other filters and accessories Note: a Lensbaby does not communicate electronically with your camera body Slective focus lens, based on a ball and socket configuration, delivers smooth selective focus photography with unparalleled ease of use and greater precision Magnetically suspended disk aperture system allows f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8.0, f/11, f/16, f/22 aperture settings. All aperture settings included.

Product Description

All Lensbaby™ picky focus SLR camera lenses provide photographers with a new way to control depth of field by bringing one quarter of a photo into sharpest focus with that Sweet Spot surrounded by graduated blur. By indirect the Lensbaby lens, the photographer moves the sharp area around the photo for customized ingenious effects.

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Customer Reviews

Lensbaby Majesty of Creative
The Lens Cosset is a must have for any photographer of any level experience.
Great for creative use and control. Optic swap system is gifted design and ease of use.

2010-05-26 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Nothing but another gimmick? "Fine art"?
I took the all together to use the Lensbaby Composer on my Panasonic G bodies, my Canon 40D and my Canon 5D Mk II for a total of about 200 dogged images before writing this review. I didn't want to approach the Lensbaby with any bias or preset expectations, nor did I necessitate to prematurely fire off a trivial review after taking a few casual images. I hope you find this review friendly.

I consider the Lensbaby prices rather steep for what you get, so I held off buying one for quite some time. The Composer looked to me to be the first possible vibrations implementation of the Lensbaby, not being attracted to the hand and finger gyrations required to work the other versions such as the Innovative, 2.0, and Muse. I also wanted to be able to lock in specific shots.

Mechanically, I was undone with the operation of the manual focus ring. It is not smooth and consistent during its entire rotation. At the closest focusing hauteur, the ring rotation is jerky. After a quarter of a turn or so, it smooths out and becomes consistent. Unfortunately, many of my shots are infatuated at or near the minimum focus distance. For a manual focus lens only, the Composer wishes to provide an optimal focus experience. It misses the mark. I can live with it, yes, but it's annoying and shouldn't be phenomenon on a lens in this price range. The mount, however, is machined nicely and fits snugly. The locking ding-dong works well, allowing a good degree of how much friction you want applied to the lens movements. The lens cap is of suspect build quality, and the lettering on the front of it arrived partially rubbed off, or never painted on. Not very attractice for a identify new lens.

Optically, the Composer comes with the Double Glass Optic, consisting of only two window-pane optical elements, each multicoated. Being a primitive optical formula with erratic (if any?) quality dominate, you can rest assured of chromatic aberration, vignetting, decentering, flare, veiling, distortion, and any numbers of optical gremlins that normally leave photographers in painful grimace. Once you start twisting and turning the Composer to move its "head over heels in love with spot", what Lensbabians call "bending", those gremlins multiply and intensify. If the Lensbaby teaches you nothing else, it will be an enjoyment for the efforts of optical engineers to tackle those nasty gremlins so that we may produce images of detailed quality with our regular lenses. However, as strange as this may sound, you're either going to embrace these gremlins and enlist them as agents of inventiveness, as I chose to do, or you're going to be sending the Lensbaby back to take advantage of their 30-day money-back guarantee, which I was tempted to do.

The Composer includes gap disks that control the size of the area that is in focus. The Composer has an approximate focal period of 50mm and, sans any aperture disks, it's rated at f/2. But wait, there is quite the rub with that focal measure. It's 50mm, true, but only on a full frame sensor body. On cameras with "cropped" sensors, and that covers the the greater part of cameras being used at this time, the effective focal length changes. On a Canon 7/10/20/30/40/50D and all Challenge digital cameras, that 50mm becomes an 80mm lens. Ugh. Not exactly a versatile focal length. To remedy that, well, be ready-to-eat to spend more money. There are two wide angle adapters available: a .42 and a .6. Both of them launch even more chromatic aberration, and with the .42, hideously so. There are aperture disks for f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22. Varying these disks can be an awkward exercise, especially if you're shooting from a tripod and don't want to disturb your snare.

There is a clever optical swap system the Lensbaby employs to switch to a variety of optical setups. I also purchased the one optic system, which is even more primitive than the double glass optic. It's just one glass uncoated territory, less sharp than the double optic, and hosting a variant breed of the optical gremlins mentioned above.

The Composer, as it ships, does not have a very painstaking focus distance. If you're going to hang onto your Lensbaby, an investment in the macro kit is a no-brainer. It includes +10 and +4 closeup filters that unqualifiedly screw into the front of the optic. They are also stackable, but if you do stack, place the +10 closest to the lens, and corkscrew the +4 on top of it. With either of both macro filters, you'll gain the ability to close focus. It is in the macro fashion that I find myself making some of my favorite Lensbaby images.

Likely, you'll find the Lensbaby to have a steep learning curve. You'll have to become buddy-buddy with how your camera body works in its non-automatic modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual), as the Lensbaby has no mechanization to it whatever. It does not automatically change lens aperture settings, nor will it automatically focus. The camera essence does still compute exposure automatically, but bending the lens may throw the auto expos off, as light is now bouncing around at crazy angles. You'll need to monitor your histogram and know how to dial in revealing compensation. If your body has it, LiveView is a godsend, enabling you to zoom in on areas you want to manually meet. Also, if you change to aperture disks smaller than f/4, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus with exactness as your viewfinder grows dimmer and dimmer. LiveView uses video gain to enliven your LCD. Invaluable. As for how to move the sweet spot to the desired location, practice makes the closest emotional attachment to perfect you're going to find with the Lensbaby. In summary, you'll need to learn to master your camera in its more manual modes and learn the trickiness of the Lensbaby lens movements to obtain successful images.

If you go to the user forums at the Lensbaby web site, you'll be able to view many images enchanted by its members, for better or for worse. I often find Lensbaby images to fall into the "trick shot" ranking, akin to those made by fisheye lenses. Overall, I view them as gimmicky. Sometimes you'll find an image that really works for you, but much of the hour, they're muddy blurry mis-takes that make you wonder why anyone would want to degrade, even brutalize, the elegant sensors embedded in your expensive dSLR.

Be forewarned: you may not enjoy using the Lensbaby, and you may find the resulting images to shortly wear out their welcome. I consider the current Amazon rating to be higher than it deserves to be. There is luxury to be found in the 30-day money-back guarantee -- you'll only be out the return shipping costs and your time.

2010-03-02 | lensman (Marietta, GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 30 | Rating: 3

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I esteem photoshop!
Before I bought the Composer, I researched everything about it from its features to the kits, etc. for months. I looked at pictures at the LB terrace site and also on Flickr. I even watched LB fans at Youtube showing OFF their new toys. Anyways, I got the Composer 2 weeks ago and I had to results it after a few days of playing with it. I was really disappointed. I mean I can achieve the same effects that the lensbaby can do through Photoshop. It also felt uncommonly cheap, plasticky and I wasn't happy with what it can do. Believe me when I say that I tried to hold onto it but I felt that the well off wasn't worth it. I also received the Optic Kit as a gift and still, I wasn't not happy with the effects (I had to requital those too). I gave it three stars because the aperture set that came with it made me want to play more with my DSLR camera's AV/manual manner but that's just about as far as my interest with the LB Composer goes. I'd rather spend my money on a nice glass like sigma or canon and scarcely retouch it through Photoshop.
It's probably because I get more creative using Photoshop than using the LB composer. Straight my opinion, hope this helps.
:)

2010-02-28 | life's a pleasure! | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 3

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Dig it.
I'd had my eye on one of these for a while, and for ever made the plunge. For the most part, I'm very pleased with it. It definitely helps get the creative juices flowing, helping you to see things in a new way. My only disaster (and I'd known this was coming) is that I've got a cropped- frame camera (Nikon D80) so what would normally be about 50mm comes to somewhere around 75mm. In other words, the focused range is painfully limited, making their wide-angle adapter lens almost an decreed purchase. (however, I've heard their wide-angle isn't that wide and that the Chromatic Aberration on Lens Pamper's ultra-wide angle is terrible. Hmmmmm, so do I want to bother?) Also, the Aperture rings that you have to be some-what-regularly switching are kind of of a nuisance, especially if you're into night photography. (Easily dropped and/or unchaste.) Ultimately, it would be great if Lens Baby eventually makes a version with f-stops built in, like a uniform lens.
However, this isn't a top-of-the-line lens, and they don't claim it to be, so they're able to keep the price reasonable. (it's basically the bumbling-man's tilt/shift.)
Long-story-short: this is a fun and creative tool to have in your lens munitions store, as long as you're aware of, and willing to put up with it's limitations. All complaints aside, I'm glad I bought it.

2010-02-23 | Dave I. (Los Angeles) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Fun, addictive and frustrating
Wearying to say more about this than others have already said but I will try. This is a really fun lens but also a powerful tool. That said, in many ways it is like Photoshop - the gap between uninvolved fun shot and works of art has a mountain sized learning curve.

The double glass optic is a weighty choice for a starter lens. It has the largest and easiest to find area that is in focus. Finding and identifying that is key to getting predicable results. When you first start using this, I propound finding a subject you know well that is also far enough away that you can focus on infinity. Then start shooting with no crevice ring installed at all and the lens fixed to straight ahead. This will give you maximum blur on the edges and the excellent chance of finding the center focus spot. I made the mistake of trying to shoot impedimenta close up at first and every time I moved even a tiny bit I lost the focus point. Once you get the hang of focusing, unlock the lens and start impressive it around. I started with a subject that had a lot of clearly defined lines so I could move the focus and track it. Once you are comfortable doing that, inspirational to the aperture rings should be a piece of cake. I have posted some images but they dont really do the consequence justice. i recommend searching for "Lensbaby" on flickr.

One issue I have with my Lensbaby is that the aperture clink tool does not have a magnet strong enough to lift the rings. I have resorted to using a irresistible tool from my tool kit. I think I got a bad tool because it wont even pick up a ring that isnt in the lens. I privation to contact Lensbaby about a replacement.

I cant speak for other brands but on my Pentax K200D I can use Aperture Priority fashion and get accurate metering. I cant imagine getting decent results without it so if your brand does not bolster it, you might want to borrow one before taking the plunge. I assumed I would have to use all manual for the first day and frustration did not begin to describe my feelings.

Once you get good old days the pure joy of bending focus you will find that the Lensbaby is an excellent lens for portraits and flowers. For portraits you can put the cynosure clear on your subjects face and by adjusting the aperture determine how much else is in focus and even how quickly it transitions to give away. Same for flowers . And you can shoot using the rule of thirds in a way the really gives richness deeps to the picture. Traditional lens makers have spent millions preventing focus eliminate-off at the edges forcing photographers to spend hundreds on Photoshop to blur those same edges! Now you can not only get the blab, you can get as much or as little as you want.

I highly recommend adding the Lensbaby Optic Kit as soon as achievable. The difficulty progression is Double Glass, Single Glass, Plastic, Zone Layer and Pinhole but the rewards are worth it. If you can only add one lens, add the plastic. It adds an element of predictable but uncontrollable distortion that is honest a ton of fun to explore.

Lensbaby is not for everyone. If your photography consists of happy snaps, documenting life or spending hours on getting bind sharp pictures, dont get one. Maybe some photographers can capture candids of people or moments with a Lensbaby but for me, every paint is a 30 second or more affair. You have to be willing to spend time both taking the pictures and scholarship how to take the pictures. In my opinion, the rewards justify both but you will have to decide for yourself.

2009-12-27 | ksuwildkat (Monterey, CA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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Lensbaby The Composer for Canon EF mount Digital SLR Cameras

List Price: $269.95 Price: $269.95

Product Details 37 mm threads allow you to attach Lensbaby¿ Macro Kit lenses, wide angle and telephoto conversion lenses, and other filters and accessories Magnetically suspended disk aperture system allows f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8.0, f/11, f/16, f/22 aperture settings. All aperture settings included. Slective focus lens, based on a ball and socket configuration, delivers smooth selective focus photography with unparalleled ease of use and greater precision Features the Lensbaby¿ Optic Swap System

Product Description

All Lensbaby™ demanding focus SLR camera lenses provide photographers with a new way to control depth of field by bringing one block of a photo into sharpest focus with that Sweet Spot surrounded by graduated haziness. By bending the Lensbaby lens, the photographer moves the sharp section around the photo for customized creative effects.

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Customer Reviews

Lensbaby Majesty of Creative
The Lens Indulge is a must have for any photographer of any level experience.
Great for creative use and control. Optic swap system is incandescent design and ease of use.

2010-05-26 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Scarcely another gimmick? "Fine art"?
I took the habits to use the Lensbaby Composer on my Panasonic G bodies, my Canon 40D and my Canon 5D Mk II for a total of about 200 steadfast images before writing this review. I didn't want to approach the Lensbaby with any bias or preset expectations, nor did I be to prematurely fire off a trivial review after taking a few casual images. I hope you find this review practical.

I consider the Lensbaby prices rather steep for what you get, so I held off buying one for quite some time. The Composer looked to me to be the first sympathy implementation of the Lensbaby, not being attracted to the hand and finger gyrations required to work the other versions such as the Archetypal, 2.0, and Muse. I also wanted to be able to lock in specific shots.

Mechanically, I was discontented with the operation of the manual focus ring. It is not smooth and consistent during its entire rotation. At the closest focusing separate, the ring rotation is jerky. After a quarter of a turn or so, it smooths out and becomes consistent. Unfortunately, many of my shots are infatuated at or near the minimum focus distance. For a manual focus lens only, the Composer requirements to provide an optimal focus experience. It misses the mark. I can live with it, yes, but it's annoying and shouldn't be phenomenon on a lens in this price range. The mount, however, is machined nicely and fits snugly. The locking ring-a-ding-ding works well, allowing a good degree of how much friction you want applied to the lens movements. The lens cap is of shady build quality, and the lettering on the front of it arrived partially rubbed off, or never painted on. Not very attractice for a trade mark new lens.

Optically, the Composer comes with the Double Glass Optic, consisting of only two specs optical elements, each multicoated. Being a primitive optical formula with erratic (if any?) quality rule, you can rest assured of chromatic aberration, vignetting, decentering, flare, veiling, distortion, and any calculate of optical gremlins that normally leave photographers in painful grimace. Once you start twisting and turning the Composer to move its "precious spot", what Lensbabians call "bending", those gremlins multiply and intensify. If the Lensbaby teaches you nothing else, it will be an rise for the efforts of optical engineers to tackle those nasty gremlins so that we may produce images of complex quality with our regular lenses. However, as strange as this may sound, you're either going to embrace these gremlins and enlist them as agents of novelty, as I chose to do, or you're going to be sending the Lensbaby back to take advantage of their 30-day money-back guarantee, which I was tempted to do.

The Composer includes cleft disks that control the size of the area that is in focus. The Composer has an approximate focal for ages c in depth of 50mm and, sans any aperture disks, it's rated at f/2. But wait, there is quite the rub with that focal size. It's 50mm, true, but only on a full frame sensor body. On cameras with "cropped" sensors, and that covers the bulk of cameras being used at this time, the effective focal length changes. On a Canon 7/10/20/30/40/50D and all Revolutionary digital cameras, that 50mm becomes an 80mm lens. Ugh. Not exactly a versatile focal length. To remedy that, well, be modified to spend more money. There are two wide angle adapters available: a .42 and a .6. Both of them broach even more chromatic aberration, and with the .42, hideously so. There are aperture disks for f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22. Varying these disks can be an awkward exercise, especially if you're shooting from a tripod and don't want to disturb your sting.

There is a clever optical swap system the Lensbaby employs to switch to a variety of optical setups. I also purchased the isolated optic system, which is even more primitive than the double glass optic. It's just one glass uncoated climatic conditions b rudiments, less sharp than the double optic, and hosting a variant breed of the optical gremlins mentioned above.

The Composer, as it ships, does not have a very strict focus distance. If you're going to hang onto your Lensbaby, an investment in the macro kit is a no-brainer. It includes +10 and +4 closeup filters that altogether screw into the front of the optic. They are also stackable, but if you do stack, place the +10 closest to the lens, and bungle the +4 on top of it. With either of both macro filters, you'll gain the ability to close focus. It is in the macro fashion that I find myself making some of my favorite Lensbaby images.

Likely, you'll find the Lensbaby to have a steep learning curve. You'll have to become relaxed with how your camera body works in its non-automatic modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual), as the Lensbaby has no mechanization to it whatever. It does not automatically change lens aperture settings, nor will it automatically focus. The camera main part does still compute exposure automatically, but bending the lens may throw the auto unveiling off, as light is now bouncing around at crazy angles. You'll need to monitor your histogram and know how to dial in disclosure compensation. If your body has it, LiveView is a godsend, enabling you to zoom in on areas you want to manually target. Also, if you change to aperture disks smaller than f/4, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus with preciseness as your viewfinder grows dimmer and dimmer. LiveView uses video gain to lighten your LCD. Invaluable. As for how to move the sweet spot to the desired location, practice makes the closest trend to perfect you're going to find with the Lensbaby. In summary, you'll need to learn to master your camera in its more manual modes and learn the trickiness of the Lensbaby lens movements to realize successful images.

If you go to the user forums at the Lensbaby web site, you'll be able to view many images captivated by its members, for better or for worse. I often find Lensbaby images to fall into the "trick shot" rank, akin to those made by fisheye lenses. Overall, I view them as gimmicky. Sometimes you'll find an image that really works for you, but much of the hour, they're muddy blurry mis-takes that make you wonder why anyone would want to degrade, even brutalize, the experienced sensors embedded in your expensive dSLR.

Be forewarned: you may not enjoy using the Lensbaby, and you may find the resulting images to hastily wear out their welcome. I consider the current Amazon rating to be higher than it deserves to be. There is gladden to be found in the 30-day money-back guarantee -- you'll only be out the return shipping costs and your time.

2010-03-02 | lensman (Marietta, GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 30 | Rating: 3

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I propose photoshop!
Before I bought the Composer, I researched everything about it from its features to the kits, etc. for months. I looked at pictures at the LB loggia site and also on Flickr. I even watched LB fans at Youtube showing OFF their new toys. Anyways, I got the Composer 2 weeks ago and I had to requital it after a few days of playing with it. I was really disappointed. I mean I can achieve the same effects that the lensbaby can do through Photoshop. It also felt unusually cheap, plasticky and I wasn't happy with what it can do. Believe me when I say that I tried to hold onto it but I felt that the fortune wasn't worth it. I also received the Optic Kit as a gift and still, I wasn't not happy with the effects (I had to replacing those too). I gave it three stars because the aperture set that came with it made me want to play more with my DSLR camera's AV/manual system but that's just about as far as my interest with the LB Composer goes. I'd rather spend my money on a nice glass like sigma or canon and just now retouch it through Photoshop.
It's probably because I get more creative using Photoshop than using the LB composer. Reasonable my opinion, hope this helps.
:)

2010-02-28 | life's a pleasure! | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 3

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Dig it.
I'd had my eye on one of these for a while, and in fine made the plunge. For the most part, I'm very pleased with it. It definitely helps get the creative juices flowing, helping you to see things in a new way. My only frustration (and I'd known this was coming) is that I've got a cropped- frame camera (Nikon D80) so what would normally be about 50mm comes to somewhere around 75mm. In other words, the centralized range is painfully limited, making their wide-angle adapter lens almost an irrevocable purchase. (however, I've heard their wide-angle isn't that wide and that the Chromatic Aberration on Lens Toddler's ultra-wide angle is terrible. Hmmmmm, so do I want to bother?) Also, the Aperture rings that you have to be some-what-frequently switching are kind of of a nuisance, especially if you're into night photography. (Easily dropped and/or bygone.) Ultimately, it would be great if Lens Baby eventually makes a version with f-stops built in, like a normal lens.
However, this isn't a top-of-the-line lens, and they don't claim it to be, so they're able to keep the price reasonable. (it's basically the second-rate-man's tilt/shift.)
Long-story-short: this is a fun and creative tool to have in your lens weapon store, as long as you're aware of, and willing to put up with it's limitations. All complaints aside, I'm glad I bought it.

2010-02-23 | Dave I. (Los Angeles) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Fun, addictive and frustrating
Unfalteringly to say more about this than others have already said but I will try. This is a really fun lens but also a powerful tool. That said, in many ways it is like Photoshop - the gap between shameless fun shot and works of art has a mountain sized learning curve.

The double glass optic is a glaring choice for a starter lens. It has the largest and easiest to find area that is in focus. Finding and identifying that is key to getting predicable results. When you first start using this, I approve finding a subject you know well that is also far enough away that you can focus on infinity. Then start shooting with no crevice ring installed at all and the lens fixed to straight ahead. This will give you maximum blur on the edges and the upper crust chance of finding the center focus spot. I made the mistake of trying to shoot baloney close up at first and every time I moved even a tiny bit I lost the focus point. Once you get the hang of focusing, unlock the lens and start persuasive it around. I started with a subject that had a lot of clearly defined lines so I could move the focus and track it. Once you are comfortable doing that, in motion to the aperture rings should be a piece of cake. I have posted some images but they dont really do the artefact justice. i recommend searching for "Lensbaby" on flickr.

One issue I have with my Lensbaby is that the aperture armlet tool does not have a magnet strong enough to lift the rings. I have resorted to using a captivating tool from my tool kit. I think I got a bad tool because it wont even pick up a ring that isnt in the lens. I miss to contact Lensbaby about a replacement.

I cant speak for other brands but on my Pentax K200D I can use Aperture Priority manner and get accurate metering. I cant imagine getting decent results without it so if your brand does not guy wire it, you might want to borrow one before taking the plunge. I assumed I would have to use all manual for the first day and frustration did not begin to describe my feelings.

Once you get past the above suspicion joy of bending focus you will find that the Lensbaby is an excellent lens for portraits and flowers. For portraits you can put the target on your subjects face and by adjusting the aperture determine how much else is in focus and even how quickly it transitions to cloudiness. Same for flowers . And you can shoot using the rule of thirds in a way the really gives brilliance to the picture. Traditional lens makers have spent millions preventing focus plummet-off at the edges forcing photographers to spend hundreds on Photoshop to blur those same edges! Now you can not only get the give away, you can get as much or as little as you want.

I highly recommend adding the Lensbaby Optic Kit as soon as tenable. The difficulty progression is Double Glass, Single Glass, Plastic, Zone Pane and Pinhole but the rewards are worth it. If you can only add one lens, add the plastic. It adds an element of predictable but uncontrollable distortion that is lawful a ton of fun to explore.

Lensbaby is not for everyone. If your photography consists of happy snaps, documenting life or spending hours on getting zigzag sharp pictures, dont get one. Maybe some photographers can capture candids of people or moments with a Lensbaby but for me, every understanding is a 30 second or more affair. You have to be willing to spend time both taking the pictures and information how to take the pictures. In my opinion, the rewards justify both but you will have to decide for yourself.

2009-12-27 | ksuwildkat (Monterey, CA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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Lensbaby The Muse for Canon EF mount Digital SLR Cameras (Plastic)

List Price: $99.95 Price: $99.95

Product Details Features the Lensbaby¿ Optic Swap System 37 mm threads allow you to attach Lensbaby¿ Macro Kit lenses, wide angle and telephoto conversion lenses, and other filters and accessories Plastic Lens.Compress the lens to focus, and move the sweet spot by bending the flexible lens tubing. Magnetically suspended disk aperture system allows f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8.0 aperture settings. All aperture settings included.

Product Description

All Lensbaby™ choosy focus SLR camera lenses provide photographers with a new way to control depth of field by bringing one stretch of a photo into sharpest focus with that Sweet Spot surrounded by graduated obscure. By bending the Lensbaby lens, the photographer moves the sharp region around the photo for customized creative effects.

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Customer Reviews

Indistinct Challenge
This lens is deep down fun, but takes a while to figure out how to get good pictures. Unless you have a separate light meter, you have to conclude and check on the shutter setting by taking lots of pictures. That is the hardest part for me; the focusing is attractive intuitive. I love the dreamy feel that the plastic optic gives, but if you prefer a acerbic 'sweet spot' go for the glass optic. Overall, a unique, relatively cheap lens to add to your gathering.

2010-07-05 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Damned fun
This is a indeed fun lens but has a strong learning curve. You can't use zone plate optic because you can't really flash long exposures with this lens. You have to manipulate the lens with your hands to focus and your hands must remnants static. Otherwise, this is pretty awesome!

2010-02-01 | Matt C. (Washington DC) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Fun abstracted FX
I bought the Day-dream with plastic optic. Very fun to use. Quick and easy to change aperture disks. I like the soothing soft effect. I find it easier to use than I thought it would be. I will certainly purchase other optics.
I took a cluster of shots with my Nikon D80. At first I guessed exposure, then grabbed the light meter. I made a company of handheld shots and liked the results on the camera screen. When printed the shots looked prized.
A well-made product I recommend.

2010-01-29 (Palm Springs, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Delight this new toy
If you're genuinely looking to expand your creative possibilities, look no further (except maybe to the Lensbaby Composer). For the percentage and the creativity you can't find a better item. These are one of a kind and pure fun. I also bought the single-glass optic to swap out and i do like that more than the bogus..however as Lensbaby is not selling one with a single-glass optic in it, I had to buy it seperately. But now I have the plastic one in this product and the surcharge single-glass to have fun with.

2009-07-08 | Helpful Votes: 9 | Rating: 5

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Lensbaby "The Contemplate"
Spin-off was shipped quickly and received in a few days after ordering. Will take some time to master the technique of how to use it. Several residents I know have this same product and are pleased with the results.

2009-03-13 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Lensbaby LBOFE Fisheye Optic for Lensbaby Composer Lenses

List Price: $149.95 Price: $149.87 You Save: $0.08 (%)

Product Details Interchangable aperature disks Ultra wide 12mm focal length Designed for use with Lensbaby Composer Focus from infinity all the way down to one inch away from the front of the lens

Product Description

Dismiss your Lensbaby Composer® into a fun fisheye lens with the Fisheye Optic, part of the Lensbaby Optic Swap System. The Fisheye Optic’s ultra-large 12mm focal length captures an eye-popping fisheye view from infinity all the way down to one inch to a different place from the front of the lens. The Fisheye Optic is designed for use with the Composer, but can also be used with the Contemplate® with the purchase of a special adapter

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Customer Reviews

Optic Swap? More like Optic Loiter Put!
I was passionately searching for an affordable fisheye lens for my Canon 40D after seeing some friends really do apart from work with this type of lens. With this Fisheye Optic installed, my LensBaby Composer (Rate Product) has been transformed from an occasional toy lens to a utility lens that I want to use every single day. It's mighty to know that this fisheye optic does not reproduce the typical LensBaby radial befog patterns...it simply turns your LensBaby into a Fisheye Lens.

We got this little optic two natural life before traveling to Costa Rica. My thinking at the time was that I wanted a nice super-off the target angle lens to go along with the rest of my gear (a 24-70 f/2.8L, a 70-200 f/4L, and a Tamron 17-35 Spacious Angle). On a trip where we expected to be in some tight quarters, small rooms and crowded forests, the lens made intuit in order to cram as much of the scenery into the frame as possible.

I ended up using this lens much more than expected because it proved to be surprisingly handy.

PROS:
- Wide-angle captures 170 degrees in your field of view
- Chromatic Defect is limited to the extreme edges of the frame
- Even on a cropped image-sensor, you can still replicate the fisheye implication.
- A great lens for shooting the night sky, room interiors, sweeping landscapes.
- The supine center of the frame is rendered with little or no distortion or curve, making it possible to have a straight from the shoulder horizon even with everything else bending into the frame.
- Durable construction (it's metal)
- Choose your own aperture, from f/4 to f/22. I stuck with f/8 and am almost always satisfied with the end result.
- Macro capability lets you get as close as 1" to your subject and the focus can still be razor-sneaky.

CONS:
- It is a little difficult to install and remove from the LensBaby...so much so that I was worried I was forcing it too hardbitten during the optic swap, and had to try two or three times to be satisfied with its position.
- There is no thread at the end of the lens, so you can not use the step-up/shades (View Product) or add any kinds of filters (though they would easily be in the field of view!)
- You'll have to carry around a (provided) alternative set of aperture discs...and the apertures for the Fisheye Optic are so small that it makes the regular inventive aperture kits incompatible.
- If you're not careful, you can make people appear to have some very unflattering manifest attributes. Keep them in the center of the frame! (or, for more fun...don't)

I'll get back to what it's like to have this lens on the camera: it's so fun! Things that are round, like rainbows, almost perform without any distortion at all. It's fun to play with perspective on things like the horizon. For instance, looking out at the abundance, if you just tilt the camera down, you can get your feet and the distant horizon in the same shot. In another case, while shooting a waterfall, neutral tilting the camera up a bit actually brought the tops of the trees behind us into the picture, without losing the bottom of the falls.

There are a few challenges when it comes to using a fisheye lens:
1. Macro photography doesn't end up sensation like it, because the perspective is warped away from the center of the frame, making even an insect or an ant seem somehow further somewhere else than it really is. You have to get really inventive with your angle in order to make something like a bug look redoubtable.
2. It makes really big things seem small. If you're looking at something that is massive, but distant, it'll be so diminished in the fisheye approach that is will seem unrecognizable. Volcanoes and mountains seemed to flatten out.
3. It's often hard to avoid getting the sun or the moon, or some good-natured of washed-out light in the frame. You'll have to be creative about what you do with all the extra light sources that aren't being cropped out in the prototype.

All told, this is my favorite lens to use. I dare say that with some real patience, you could generate some professional-honest results with it. For $150, I have no regrets.

2010-01-25 (Reston, VA) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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Least Utilitarian Value
Set up and optical quality are as good as any of my optional Lensbaby optics, I just found this one to be a bit less utilitarian than their other optics. I dream what bothers me about it is the extreme vignetting that makes the central subject difficult to really see unless the corporealization is blown up pretty large. Admittedly this is somewhat subjective to the users vision though, because someone might be skilful to take this and make amazing photos, it just didn't spark my muse. I love my Lensbaby alot but this one will like as not only be used occasionally to rarely.

2010-01-08 | DMAN (Denver, CO) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Lensbaby The Composer for Nikon F mount Digital SLR Cameras

List Price: $269.95 Price: $269.95

Product Details 37 mm threads allow you to attach Lensbaby¿ Macro Kit lenses, wide angle and telephoto conversion lenses, and other filters and accessories Note: a Lensbaby does not communicate electronically with your camera body Features the Lensbaby Optic Swap System Magnetically suspended disk aperture system allows f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8.0, f/11, f/16, f/22 aperture settings.

Product Description

All Lensbaby™ discriminating focus SLR camera lenses provide photographers with a new way to control depth of field by bringing one court of a photo into sharpest focus with that Sweet Spot surrounded by graduated blab. By bending the Lensbaby lens, the photographer moves the sharp region around the photo for customized creative effects.

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Customer Reviews

Lensbaby Ruler of Creative
The Lens Pet is a must have for any photographer of any level experience.
Great for creative use and control. Optic swap system is superb design and ease of use.

2010-05-26 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Even-handed another gimmick? "Fine art"?
I took the culture to use the Lensbaby Composer on my Panasonic G bodies, my Canon 40D and my Canon 5D Mk II for a total of about 200 intended images before writing this review. I didn't want to approach the Lensbaby with any bias or preset expectations, nor did I destitution to prematurely fire off a trivial review after taking a few casual images. I hope you find this review useful.

I consider the Lensbaby prices rather steep for what you get, so I held off buying one for quite some time. The Composer looked to me to be the first feelings implementation of the Lensbaby, not being attracted to the hand and finger gyrations required to work the other versions such as the Unique, 2.0, and Muse. I also wanted to be able to lock in specific shots.

Mechanically, I was unhappy with the operation of the manual focus ring. It is not smooth and consistent during its entire rotation. At the closest focusing footage, the ring rotation is jerky. After a quarter of a turn or so, it smooths out and becomes consistent. Unfortunately, many of my shots are captivated at or near the minimum focus distance. For a manual focus lens only, the Composer requests to provide an optimal focus experience. It misses the mark. I can live with it, yes, but it's annoying and shouldn't be chance on a lens in this price range. The mount, however, is machined nicely and fits snugly. The locking halo works well, allowing a good degree of how much friction you want applied to the lens movements. The lens cap is of doubtful build quality, and the lettering on the front of it arrived partially rubbed off, or never painted on. Not very attractice for a trade-mark new lens.

Optically, the Composer comes with the Double Glass Optic, consisting of only two window optical elements, each multicoated. Being a primitive optical formula with erratic (if any?) quality dial, you can rest assured of chromatic aberration, vignetting, decentering, flare, veiling, distortion, and any covey of optical gremlins that normally leave photographers in painful grimace. Once you start twisting and turning the Composer to move its "splendid spot", what Lensbabians call "bending", those gremlins multiply and intensify. If the Lensbaby teaches you nothing else, it will be an understanding for the efforts of optical engineers to tackle those nasty gremlins so that we may produce images of complex quality with our regular lenses. However, as strange as this may sound, you're either going to embrace these gremlins and enlist them as agents of freshness, as I chose to do, or you're going to be sending the Lensbaby back to take advantage of their 30-day money-back guarantee, which I was tempted to do.

The Composer includes cleft disks that control the size of the area that is in focus. The Composer has an approximate focal exhaustively of 50mm and, sans any aperture disks, it's rated at f/2. But wait, there is quite the rub with that focal thoroughly. It's 50mm, true, but only on a full frame sensor body. On cameras with "cropped" sensors, and that covers the manhood of cameras being used at this time, the effective focal length changes. On a Canon 7/10/20/30/40/50D and all Freedom fighter digital cameras, that 50mm becomes an 80mm lens. Ugh. Not exactly a versatile focal length. To remedy that, well, be processed to spend more money. There are two wide angle adapters available: a .42 and a .6. Both of them bring out even more chromatic aberration, and with the .42, hideously so. There are aperture disks for f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22. Shifting these disks can be an awkward exercise, especially if you're shooting from a tripod and don't want to disturb your trap.

There is a clever optical swap system the Lensbaby employs to switch to a variety of optical setups. I also purchased the unmarried optic system, which is even more primitive than the double glass optic. It's just one glass uncoated domain a adverse, less sharp than the double optic, and hosting a variant breed of the optical gremlins mentioned above.

The Composer, as it ships, does not have a very private focus distance. If you're going to hang onto your Lensbaby, an investment in the macro kit is a no-brainer. It includes +10 and +4 closeup filters that absolutely screw into the front of the optic. They are also stackable, but if you do stack, place the +10 closest to the lens, and strain the +4 on top of it. With either of both macro filters, you'll gain the ability to close focus. It is in the macro look that I find myself making some of my favorite Lensbaby images.

Likely, you'll find the Lensbaby to have a steep learning curve. You'll have to become easy with how your camera body works in its non-automatic modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual), as the Lensbaby has no mechanization to it whatever. It does not automatically change lens aperture settings, nor will it automatically focus. The camera solidity does still compute exposure automatically, but bending the lens may throw the auto laying open off, as light is now bouncing around at crazy angles. You'll need to monitor your histogram and know how to dial in laying open compensation. If your body has it, LiveView is a godsend, enabling you to zoom in on areas you want to manually heart. Also, if you change to aperture disks smaller than f/4, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus with exactness as your viewfinder grows dimmer and dimmer. LiveView uses video gain to liven up your LCD. Invaluable. As for how to move the sweet spot to the desired location, practice makes the closest feeling to perfect you're going to find with the Lensbaby. In summary, you'll need to learn to master your camera in its more manual modes and learn the trickiness of the Lensbaby lens movements to carry out successful images.

If you go to the user forums at the Lensbaby web site, you'll be able to view many images captivated by its members, for better or for worse. I often find Lensbaby images to fall into the "trick shot" area, akin to those made by fisheye lenses. Overall, I view them as gimmicky. Sometimes you'll find an image that really works for you, but much of the in good time always, they're muddy blurry mis-takes that make you wonder why anyone would want to degrade, even brutalize, the suave sensors embedded in your expensive dSLR.

Be forewarned: you may not enjoy using the Lensbaby, and you may find the resulting images to speedily wear out their welcome. I consider the current Amazon rating to be higher than it deserves to be. There is hearten to be found in the 30-day money-back guarantee -- you'll only be out the return shipping costs and your time.

2010-03-02 | lensman (Marietta, GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 30 | Rating: 3

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I submit photoshop!
Before I bought the Composer, I researched everything about it from its features to the kits, etc. for months. I looked at pictures at the LB terrace site and also on Flickr. I even watched LB fans at Youtube showing OFF their new toys. Anyways, I got the Composer 2 weeks ago and I had to proffer it after a few days of playing with it. I was really disappointed. I mean I can achieve the same effects that the lensbaby can do through Photoshop. It also felt in the end cheap, plasticky and I wasn't happy with what it can do. Believe me when I say that I tried to hold onto it but I felt that the fat wasn't worth it. I also received the Optic Kit as a gift and still, I wasn't not happy with the effects (I had to come those too). I gave it three stars because the aperture set that came with it made me want to play more with my DSLR camera's AV/manual procedure but that's just about as far as my interest with the LB Composer goes. I'd rather spend my money on a nice glass like sigma or canon and legitimate retouch it through Photoshop.
It's probably because I get more creative using Photoshop than using the LB composer. Well-deserved my opinion, hope this helps.
:)

2010-02-28 | life's a pleasure! | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 3

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Dig it.
I'd had my eye on one of these for a while, and for all made the plunge. For the most part, I'm very pleased with it. It definitely helps get the creative juices flowing, helping you to see things in a new way. My only unsatisfaction (and I'd known this was coming) is that I've got a cropped- frame camera (Nikon D80) so what would normally be about 50mm comes to somewhere around 75mm. In other words, the centred range is painfully limited, making their wide-angle adapter lens almost an inexorable purchase. (however, I've heard their wide-angle isn't that wide and that the Chromatic Aberration on Lens Babe in arms's ultra-wide angle is terrible. Hmmmmm, so do I want to bother?) Also, the Aperture rings that you have to be some-what-recurrently switching are kind of of a nuisance, especially if you're into night photography. (Easily dropped and/or frenzied.) Ultimately, it would be great if Lens Baby eventually makes a version with f-stops built in, like a natural lens.
However, this isn't a top-of-the-line lens, and they don't claim it to be, so they're able to keep the price reasonable. (it's basically the ruined-man's tilt/shift.)
Long-story-short: this is a fun and creative tool to have in your lens munitions store, as long as you're aware of, and willing to put up with it's limitations. All complaints aside, I'm glad I bought it.

2010-02-23 | Dave I. (Los Angeles) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Fun, addictive and frustrating
Unsolvable to say more about this than others have already said but I will try. This is a really fun lens but also a powerful tool. That said, in many ways it is like Photoshop - the gap between serene fun shot and works of art has a mountain sized learning curve.

The double glass optic is a immense choice for a starter lens. It has the largest and easiest to find area that is in focus. Finding and identifying that is key to getting predicable results. When you first start using this, I promote finding a subject you know well that is also far enough away that you can focus on infinity. Then start shooting with no gap ring installed at all and the lens fixed to straight ahead. This will give you maximum blur on the edges and the excellent chance of finding the center focus spot. I made the mistake of trying to shoot fill close up at first and every time I moved even a tiny bit I lost the focus point. Once you get the hang of focusing, unlock the lens and start impelling it around. I started with a subject that had a lot of clearly defined lines so I could move the focus and track it. Once you are comfortable doing that, inspiring to the aperture rings should be a piece of cake. I have posted some images but they dont really do the consequence justice. i recommend searching for "Lensbaby" on flickr.

One issue I have with my Lensbaby is that the aperture pealing tool does not have a magnet strong enough to lift the rings. I have resorted to using a spellbinding tool from my tool kit. I think I got a bad tool because it wont even pick up a ring that isnt in the lens. I destitution to contact Lensbaby about a replacement.

I cant speak for other brands but on my Pentax K200D I can use Aperture Priority manner and get accurate metering. I cant imagine getting decent results without it so if your brand does not foundation it, you might want to borrow one before taking the plunge. I assumed I would have to use all manual for the first day and frustration did not begin to describe my feelings.

Once you get former times the pure joy of bending focus you will find that the Lensbaby is an excellent lens for portraits and flowers. For portraits you can put the pinpoint on your subjects face and by adjusting the aperture determine how much else is in focus and even how quickly it transitions to hide. Same for flowers . And you can shoot using the rule of thirds in a way the really gives perception to the picture. Traditional lens makers have spent millions preventing focus stop in withdraw from-off at the edges forcing photographers to spend hundreds on Photoshop to blur those same edges! Now you can not only get the fog, you can get as much or as little as you want.

I highly recommend adding the Lensbaby Optic Kit as soon as realizable. The difficulty progression is Double Glass, Single Glass, Plastic, Zone Illustration and Pinhole but the rewards are worth it. If you can only add one lens, add the plastic. It adds an element of predictable but uncontrollable distortion that is virtuous a ton of fun to explore.

Lensbaby is not for everyone. If your photography consists of happy snaps, documenting life or spending hours on getting fitments sharp pictures, dont get one. Maybe some photographers can capture candids of people or moments with a Lensbaby but for me, every paint is a 30 second or more affair. You have to be willing to spend time both taking the pictures and wisdom how to take the pictures. In my opinion, the rewards justify both but you will have to decide for yourself.

2009-12-27 | ksuwildkat (Monterey, CA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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what lenses for a slr camera body would you recommend?

Q: I mostly picture people & am big on headshots. What lenses do you use/like that get great details and a brittle/sharp image?

Also, are lensbabies all they're cut out to be?

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A: Typical portrait lenses are 85-105mm so if you are using film these are the ones to go for. The prime lenses will be outstrip than the zooms. I use Canon so the lenses I am listing are Canon but if you prefer Nikon they will have the equal lenses.

If you are using a cropped sensor DSLR I would go for a 50mm F1.8, 1.4 or 1.2L and peradventure a 24-70 F2.8L lens.
The large aperture will give you a nice frivolous depth of field.

You need different focal ultimately lenses for the cropped sensor dslr's because the sensor is smaller than 35mm smokescreen. For most dslr's you will have to multiply the focal length of the lens by 1.5 or 1.6 to get what your lens will respond as.

So a 50mm will give you the same angle of view as a 80mm lens and the 24-70 would give you 38mm to 112mm. Don't hassle that they don't match up exactly. You can use this to your advantage.

I have a Lensbabies 3G and I love it. It is a fun lens and for the fee it is well worth it. I would suggest you get the 3G though. It has the ability to lock the angle and spotlight. The original one does not. It is a bit difficult to use the older models.

Lensbaby 2.0 vs Nikon 50mm f/1.8?

Q: I fancy to hear from people that have used each, and can compare the two, or give me ur opinions about them.

i recently got a Nikon D60 and I'm looking for a new lens besides the kit 18-55mm, and 55-200mm lenses that came with my camera stiff.
i think that neither of these auto-focus on the D60, and that's OK.
on adorama.com the lensbaby 2.0 is $75 and the Nikon 50mm is $110.

i've heard lensbabies are fun to feign around with and i like the effect they produce, but my only potential hang-up is how beneficial it will be in the long run and in different situations?

im also open to any other suggestions of other lenses in this figure range that are pretty versatile.

any general tips to ground my pictures are also appreciated :]

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A: It is correct, the Lensbaby is a fun toy, but does not have the resolution of the excellent Nikon 50 mm, however you will have to buy the new AF-S 50 mm f/1.4 lens to have coupй-focus and metering features.