Introducing the Lensbaby
It’s said that Lensbabys are like Marmite: you either love ‘em or hate ‘em – that’s if you’ve heard of
them at all. For those that haven’t, the Lensbaby is a lens that gives the unusual effect of
progressive blurring towards the edges of your image with a ‘sweet spot’ that stays sharp. It’s a fun
and creative lens that can break you out of a photographic rut and inspire and excite you. It’s not
just a toy, however – there are many professional photographers using it to great effect, most
notably in wedding and portrait photography, and in macro and product photography.
Different types
The Lensbaby range has been evolving lately, with some models being dropped, others renamed,
and others tweaked a little to update them. There were originally three basic lenses: the Muse (now
tweaked a little and renamed The Spark), the Control Freak (no longer available), and the Composer
(now called the Composer Pro). Lensbaby have also recently introduced a lens that will work with
mobile phones and this will be available towards the end of 2014.
The Composer is the easiest lens to get started with, and the most popular one, so for this article I’m
going to concentrate on how that works. First of all, though, let’s look at both the Composer and
the Spark to see how they compare.
The Composer Pro has a ball and socket joint that allows it to bend in any direction. If you keep
everything central then the sharp spot (aka sweet spot) will be in the centre of your image; if you
bend the lens, the sharp spot will move towards the edge in whatever direction you bend it.
Focussing is done by hand using the focussing ring on the lens, and you change aperture by
physically inserting/removing the aperture rings with a specially supplied tool. The lens will stay
wherever you bend it to, but there is a locking mechanism to hold it there if you want to be sure of
keeping it in the same place. The Composer is by far the easiest of the lenses to get used to and is
the best choice if you’re just getting started with Lensbaby.
The Spark is a later version of what was called The Muse, but has undergone a few changes. First of
all, there is only one aperture setting, which is f5.6, unlike the Composer Pro which has an aperture
range of f2 to f22. Unlike the Composer, focussing is done by squeezing the lens in or out rather
than through a dedicated focussing ring. Obviously this makes focussing more difficult, particularly
as you might be bending the lens at the same time in order to move the sweet spot. Rather than a
ball and socket arrangement, the Spark has a concertina design that allows it to be manoevred using
a squeezing motion. I’ve heard it said that you need three hands to be able to use it easily, but
seasoned Lensbaby users manage to be pretty effective using only two. Its advantages are that it
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allows you to be spontaneous and it’s good for fast-changing situations or unplanned moments
when you need to shoot quickly. Once you master the bending/squeezing technique, you’ll
appreciate the speed with which you can focus and shoot – while the Composer offers more control
and is easier to use, it takes longer to get the lens into position. However, because of the fluidity of
the bend/squeeze action that you use with the Spark, and the lack of locking device to hold it in
place, it does make it difficult to repeat the shot.
Getting started
The Lensbaby is attached to your camera in the same way as any other lens, but there the similarity
ends. The Lensbaby won’t work in Auto, Scene Modes, Programme (P), or Shutter Priority (S or Tv) –
this is because the aperture is changed by inserting or removing discs into the lens and as your
camera now has no control over what aperture is used, you can’t use an exposure mode where it
expects to be able to choose the aperture size. On some makes of camera you’ll be able to use
Aperture Priority (A or Av) and the camera will choose the shutter speed to match your choice of
aperture disc. On other models even this isn’t possible and you’ll have to use Manual Mode (M) and
choose all the settings yourself.
If you have to use Manual mode, you control the exposure by changing the shutter speed just as you
would normally. Your camera is likely to have a metering scale either in the viewfinder or on the
LCD screen, which has a plus sign on one end and a minus on the other. (The plus will be on the
right and the minus on the left, unless you have a Nikon, which is the opposite way round). Moving
towards the plus makes your image lighter, moving towards the minus makes it darker.) You’ll see a
pointer, or perhaps a series of marks that indicate where the exposure is at the moment, and as you
change shutter speed you’ll see these marks or the pointer shift.
While pointing your camera at your subject, set it so that the pointer is right in the centre. In theory
this should give you the correct exposure, but in practice you may need to make some adjustments
to lighten or darken it. One of our tutors finds that her camera underexposes by about two thirds of
a stop when it has the Lensbaby on it, and therefore she has to routinely over-expose her shots by
the same amount. Every camera is different and it takes a little trial and error to find out how your
own will behave.
If you’re very unlucky you may have a camera that doesn’t display a metering scale while the
Lensbaby is attached to it. The only way forward in this situation is a system of making your best
guess and then checking and adjusting it till the image comes out the way you want it. Most
cameras, however, will display a metering scale.
Focussing is straightforward, although not always easy. Starting with the lens pointing straight
ahead (ie, not bent), use the focussing ring on the lens to bring the sweet spot into focus. This does
depend on the camera being adjusted to suit your own eyesight – if you haven’t done this before,
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change the dioptre setting so that it works with your sight. (*For those who don’t know how, see
the instructions at the end of the article.)
If you want the sweet spot in the centre of your image, then you can now go ahead and shoot but
you also have the option of moving the sweet spot to a different part of your image. To do this, start
as before and focus while your subject is in the centre. Then recompose and bend the lens towards
wherever your subject is now – eg, if it’s on the left, bend the lens to the left, if it’s low centre, bend
the lens down, etc. – and watch for when it comes into focus again. You may have to do some finetuning of the focussing at this point, as the lens movement may have changed the distance between
you and your subject. You can bend the lens and move the sweet spot first, then set the focus, but
this is harder to do.
The blurring effect is strongest with the widest aperture. It’s a good idea when beginning to use f4
or f5.6 as this will still give you plenty of softness but enable you to be able to easily see where the
sharp spot is – wider apertures will make this much more difficult. Apertures at the opposite end of
the scale will reduce the blurring effect so much that it’s hardly noticeable, so these are not usually
the best ones to choose.
What can you shoot with a Lensbaby?
Anything at all. Many photographers use them to great effect for portraits and wedding shots, as
they isolate the subject and give a soft, dreamy look to the shot. (It’s usually best to make sure the
sharp spot is over the eyes.)
For the same reasons, it can be excellent for street photography, softening the background and
bringing attention to the subject. However, to get good results you have to be proficient enough to
change settings rapidly enough to keep up with a constantly changing and moving subject. To begin
with, shoot relatively static subjects such as street performers and buskers as in the shot below.
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Landscapes are an easier option to begin with, and you can achieve a soft, otherworldly look that’s
very distinctive. The larger the aperture disk you use, the more blurring you’ll get and if you move
the sweet spot towards one side then the blurring begins to look like motion blur. In the shot below,
which is a mock-up of a book cover, the motion helps lead you through the gate:
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The effect doesn’t have to be as obvious as this – in the example below, it’s more subtle and just
helps to enhance the shimmery effect of the sea.
The Lensbaby has many optional accessories (of which, more below), and one of these is a set of
macro filters. These screw on to the end of the lens and come in two strengths. The Lensbaby is
fantastic for macro and it’s also a cheap way to try macro if you already have a Lensbaby and don’t
want to fork out for a normal dedicated macro lens. Because macro photography by its nature
involves shallow depth of field, the blurring created by the Lensbaby is not so different and the
colours it produces are amazing.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, and for lots more inspiration look at the Lensbaby website where
you’ll find portfolios showing what can be done: www.lensbaby.co.uk. It’s worth checking out the
American website as well, as it has different content: www.lensbaby.com
Other lenses and optics
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One of the fun things about the Lensbaby is that it offers a whole host of additional lenses, optics
and accessories. Lensbaby has been steaming ahead lately with more and more options and it’s
hard to keep up, but here are some of what’s on offer at the time of writing.
Optics
Lensbaby lenses are probably unique in that they have what’s called an Optic Swap System. What
this means is that you can swap the ‘glass’ or optic inside the lens for different ones – ie, the lens
itself stays attached to your camera but the optic inside is changeable. The Composer comes with
the Double-Glass Optic – previously, there was a single-glass and a plastic optic also available and
these gave progressively softer results, but these are only available now as part of the Optic Kit,
which also includes the Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic. However, you should still be able to find
secondhand ones sold individually on Ebay.
Soft Focus Optic: this does what it says on the tin – gives a very soft, velvety effect with edge to edge
softness.
Edge 80 optic: instead of producing a circular sweet spot, this works more like a tilt/shift lens and
gives a linear ‘slice’ of sharpness that can be placed across the picture plane in any direction. Unlike
some of the other optics, aperture can be changed from within the lens rather than having to drop
the aperture disc into the optic and it has an 80mm focal length.
Sweet 35 Optic: as you might guess from the name, this optic has a 35mm focal length. It gives
much the same effect as the double-glass optic, but again the aperture is controlled from within the
lens rather than having to physically place the aperture ring in it.
Fisheye Optic: this is a 12mm lens with drop-in aperture discs and gives the familiar curved and
distorted fisheye effect. Unless you’re using a full-frame camera, your image will be circular with a
black border around it.
Lensbaby offer two other options if you’re interested in fisheye photography: the Fisheye Lens and
the Scout. The Scout is Lensbaby’s only non-bending lens and it comes with the fisheye optic already
installed. As it doesn’t bend, it ensures that your image will be perfectly centred every time.
The Fisheye Lens is different from the optic in that, rather than inserting it as an optic into the
standard Lensbaby lens, it’s a dedicated fisheye lens. It comes with integral aperture control, a focus
ring, and it’s optimised to be used with APS-C sensors (most entry level/intermediate DSLRs use
these).
Optic Kit: there are three optics included in this which can no longer be purchased separately: the
single-glass optic, the plastic optic, and the Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic. If you’ve ever fancied trying
pinhole photography with a digital camera this is an easy way to get started. Moving the slider at
the bottom of the lens in one direction turns your camera into a Pinhole version of itself. If you slide
it in the other direction, it will offer you a Zone Plate. If you haven’t heard of zone plates – and most
people haven’t – they give a very hazy and light-diffused result that’s hard to describe and easier to
show. If you go to www.lensbaby.co.uk and use the dropdown menu to click on Zone Plate, you’ll
see a number of examples.
Accessories
As well as the Optics and Lenses, there are numerous accessories for your Lensbaby.
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Macro Converters: these come in a nifty little pouch with two close-up filters that screw into the
front of the lens. There’s one 8mm filter that will let you focus from 0” to 8.13”, and a 16mm filter
that allows you to focus from 2.25” to 6”. If you stack them together, you’ll get a focussing range of
1.63” to 5”.
Accessory Kit: this consists of a wide-angle converter, a telephoto converter, macro converters, and
creative aperture kit. The macro converters are still available to purchase separately, but if you want
the wide-angle/telephoto converters or the original creative aperture kit, you can only get them by
buying the Accessory Kit or by hunting down a used version on Ebay.
The Lensbaby is a fixed lens, which means it has a set focal length of 50mm. However, if you want to
zoom in or shoot at a wider angle, you can screw the wide-angle or telephoto converter onto the
end of your lens and they’ll change the focal length to 30mm (wideangle) or 80mm (telephoto).
Also included in the accessory kit is the Creative Aperture Kit. if you fancy having some fun with
changing specular highlights into shapes of your choice, instead of using the usual aperture discs you
can insert an alternative disc with a shape cut into it, such as a heart or a star. What this does is to
change any bright light source into the shape of whatever is on the disc – ie, if you shoot the lights
on a Christmas tree, they’ll turn out heart-shaped, or star-shaped. The kit comes with nine different
aperture shapes.
Creative Aperture Kit 2: this gives a further range of creative aperture discs to play with.
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Super Wide-Angle Lens: this converts your Lensbaby from a 50mm lens to a 21mm lens and also has
some macro capability, allowing you to shoot as close as 7cm from your subject.
Lensbaby System Bag: if you buy many accessories or optics, you’ll end up with rather a lot of fiddly
bits and pieces to store in your camera bag. Lensbaby has solved this problem by coming up with
the Lensbaby System Bag, which holds them all neatly together. It’s not listed on the UK version of
Lensbaby’s website, but you can find it for sale in the UK on Ebay, Amazon, or by using the Google
shopping tab.
As you can imagine, all these options can offer you endless fun, either singly or in combination, but
you can take things even further. If you’re used to using filters on your lenses, it’s possible to do this
with the Lensbaby as well, using the Step-Up/Shade. This will allow you to use 52mm filters on your
Lensbaby lens.
In fact, whatever you might think of trying with a normal lens you can do with the Lensbaby too –
black and white, multiple exposures, HDR, Orton technique, flash, and so on. You can even use the
lenses in conjunction with the video function on your camera.
Post-processing
Lensbaby shots often don’t need much in the way of post-processing. Colours tend to come out
really well and the large amounts of blurring make sharpening less of an issue. Cropping is also often
counter-productive as you crop off the blurring effect that’s the whole point of the lens. There is
one useful piece of post-processing that’s worth knowing about, though, and that’s how to
selectively sharpen the sweet spot.
The following will work in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. As Photoshop is changing all the
time there may well be more efficient ways of achieving the same result but this method will work
even in older versions of either programme.
 Open up your image and then copy it to a second layer.
 Sharpen the second layer using your usual technique/tool until the sharp spot looks the way
you want it to (don’t worry about the blurred areas for the moment).
 Then click on the Eraser tool and gently rub out the sharpening effect over the areas where
you don’t want it – ie, the soft or blurred areas. This gives you maximum sharpness where
you want it without losing softness where you want to preserve it.
Resources
The best book (and as far as I know the only book) on the market that deals exclusively with
Lensbaby is Lensbaby: Bending Your Perspective by Corey Hilz. It’s an excellent read that will take
you through all the lenses, optics, and accessories, with pictures of what each one does and how
they compare to each other. It’s also full of inspirational portfolios, plus lots of tips and guidance on
how to get the best from your lens and comes highly recommended.
The Lensbaby website is full of useful stuff and well worth a visit. The UK site gives details of
products currently available, as well as instructional videos, galleries, and other useful stuff:
www.lensbaby.co.uk It’s worth looking at the American site too, as it has different content on it
and details of products that aren’t yet marketed in the UK, such as the new phone lens:
www.lensbaby.com
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Some final tips and hints
Quite apart from being a whole lot of fun, the Lensbaby is great for developing your skills as a
photographer. It’s a fixed lens rather than a zoom and that makes you think harder about framing
and how to achieve what you want. You’ll have to manually focus, and you may also have to use
manual exposure. These are all things that will really help your ‘normal’ photography as well.
It also has a way of freeing you up creatively. It’s fun, and play is one of the best ways to become
more creative. Results are more serendipitous and you never know quite what you’re going to get,
which adds an element of spontaneity and surprise. If you’re someone who likes to set up and
control every aspect of a shot you’ll probably hate it, but if you want something that’s less
predictable than modern digital cameras usually are, then you’ll enjoy it hugely.
Lensbabys can be a little difficult to get used to at first, and the trick is to persevere. Put the
Lensbaby on your camera and commit to leaving it there for a set length of time, whether that’s a
day or a week or several months. Leave your other lenses at home so you won’t be tempted to give
in and swap over to them, and just keep shooting with the Lensbaby. You’ll very soon get faster and
more efficient with it, and gain a good understanding of where it works best and how to get the
most from it. As with everything, practice is the answer.
*As promised earlier, here are the instructions for setting your Dioptre
Next to your viewfinder (if you have one) you’ll find a small notched wheel – this is your dioptre. In
some cameras it may take the form of a slider. Look into your viewfinder and place your attention
on the focussing points you see on the screen – these will be dots, lines or boxes, often set out in a
diamond shape. Keeping your eye on these, turn the wheel or move the slider until they look as
sharp as possible. That’s it! – your dioptre will now be set to your own vision and doesn’t need to be
changed again unless your eyesight changes, you lend your camera to a friend, or it gets accidentally
moved. Note that if you wear glasses when you take photos, it’s important that you also wear them
when making the dioptre adjustment.
All text and images © Gilly Walker
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