Proud New Father

The new baby has arrived. Lensbaby that is.

The above image may look like one of my Photoshop fake miniatures, but what you see is what came right out of the camera. The Lensbaby is a poor mans tilt/shift lens. And yes, I know the Lensbaby is NOT a true tilt/shift lens, but it’s also not $1500 to $2000 and happens to be available for the Sony/Minolta mount.

The Lensbaby is a manual focus lens that lets you focus on your subject and then utilizing the ball and socket design, move what they call the “sweet spot” of focus anywhere in the frame so that your subject is clear and everything that surrounds it is blurry.

My Sony Alpha 700 will shoot with this lens in aperture priority mode which helps with the light metering. Actual aperture is controlled by magnetic aperture discs that go in the lens

The Magnetic Aperture Set with the magnetic wand aperture removal tool and custom storage case ships with the lens. The discs allow apertures of f/2 (no aperture disk installed), 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, and 22

I’m struggling with the manual focus but the lens challenges me to take my time and think about what I am doing. It’s light weight and rugged so it’s easy to add to the photo kit, just in case you see something that lends itself to this style of photography.