By Andrew Liszewski
Anyone who?s a camera enthusiast is probably already familiar with the Lensbaby but to those who aren?t it?s basically a special lens for SLR cameras that uses a flexible tube that can be bent or tilted not unlike a ?bendy? straw. This allows you to bring one specific area of your framed scene into sharp focus with a ?sweet spot? while the area around it remains out of focus with a graduated blur. It?s definitely not something you want to use on a daily basis but it can be used to produce an occasional unique shot. For example check out this photo taken by my friend using the Lensbaby 2.0 to see the effect.
One of the biggest complaints of the Lensbaby 2.0 though was the fact that it was difficult to accurately adjust where the sweet spot fell and even more difficult to perfectly reproduce a previous setup. To remedy this problem the latest version of the Lensbaby called the 3G now allows you to lock the lens in place and make extremely fine adjustments to its position via a set of turnable screws and a barrel focusing ring. Of course it can also be used the same way as the Lensbaby 2.0 but I know a lot of photographers who will be more inclined to give the Lensbaby a shot now that it has finer focus controls.
The Lensbaby 3G pictured here is designed for a Nikon F mount but versions are available for pretty much every SLR on the market and retail for $270.00.
[ Lensbaby 3G ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]