New Lens, Baby!

[sleeping]

Yep, a Lensbaby 3G ( here on my N8008s). A few more photos here:

http://flickr.com/photos/awrose/tags/lensbaby/

[Elsinore]

Awesome, congrats! I love my 3G–very fun little lens. Just make sure you have it unlocked when you store it. The bellows can stay bent if it’s stored bent. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your new toy 🙂

[sleeping]

Good to know, thanks. I bought it used on Ebay, so I don’t have a manual.

[Elsinore]

No problem. Got some links for you…

Online 3G user guide: http://lensbabies.com/wiki/user_guide with pdfs of the quick start guide as well as the user guide available.
Lensbaby FAQ: http://lensbabies.com/training-center/faq#user_guide
Lensbaby FAQ section on Nikon technical questions: http://lensbabies.com/training-center/faq#nikon

Btw, they now have a nice case to store your 3G in that’s nicer than the plastic one yours (hopefully) came in. It’s much easier to put into a camera bag than the plastic one.

Oh and here are my Lensbaby Flickr sets: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lady_elsinore/collections/72157600000607130/

Think this makes 3 of us with Lensbabies–monkeybort has a 2.0 and has done some seriously awesome stuff with hers.

[sleeping]

Thanks again! I’ve ordered one of the cases, I needed a new aperture set anyway as the one I have is missing some.

[Flavivirus]

Can I ask a really… really basic question? I saw a lensbaby in a store recently and I’m just curious about something. I’m pretty good at photoshop, and I have the latest version, and I’m pretty confident I can do everything that I’ve seen so far in test/sample pictures. Is there an advantage to the lensbaby that I’m not seeing? Or is it that it is pure and you -don’t- have to photomanipulate it? I like buying gadgets but if all it does is save me time on photoprocessing, I can’t justify it.

Of course, I love the sample images (both galleries posted!) but I was just curious about it, I certainly don’t mean to offend anyone’s purchase… just curious if there is something else there.

[Elsinore]

For me it’s experiential. It’s much more fun to play with the different combinations of bending and aperture (sizes as well as shapes) on the camera than it is to mess around with it in post-processing. It’s also Farktography-legal 😉

For that matter, while I know the Lensbaby effect can be approximated in PS (as can the Holga and Lomo type effects), I’m not entirely convinced it’s 100% accurate (also much like the Holga and Lomo fakes, and I’ve done those myself). The distortion of the lens itself coupled with the distortion imposed by bending the bellows makes for something that’s difficult to accurately fake–it’s difficult to get the blur to fall off the way it does in the actual lens. Even coming close as I’m sure some people can with PS (and I have seen some examples), I would think it would take a lot more time futzing with it to get it just right when you could just slap the Lensbaby on the camera and go shoot lots of frames in the time it would take you to fake a couple.

On a related note, I’ve faked my share of Holga shots with GIMP, and that’s fun too, but people still buy up Holga cameras, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. It’s the experience of shooting with the Holga, much like using a Lensbaby.

If you’re at all interested in buying a Lensbaby, here’s a couple things to keep in mind:

1) Try the 2.0 if the 3G price tag seems steep. The optics are exactly the same in both lenses, but the 3G can lock its bend and focus and can adjust after being locked. This is very handy for tripod mounted shots, but not critical. I don’t use the locking feature all the time, myself.

2) If you don’t love it, you can return it within 30 days for a full refund (obviously applies to new Lensbabies, not used). They want you to love the lens, but they recognize that it’s just not for everyone. It’s a special effect lens, and it won’t be something you use everyday or for every shoot.

[Flavivirus]

… tempting… 😀 Haha, thanks Elsinore! I keep reading about how “fun it is”… almost universally.

That being said, I’m off to Hong Kong in 1 week, and my budget is being eaten up by lenses that I normally couldn’t afford (go Canadian dollar!). The sigma 10-20 for $380 canadian is crazy! Plus I want to get a very good low-light prime (the 55 1.8 Nikkor seems to be almost universally owned)… gah, so much to buy! so much!!!

[Author]

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