Yes, I should probably have my head examined. Maybe I’m just a masochist. But I had a brilliant idea for a new 100 days project and I couldn’t come up with any good excuses not to run with it. So, starting today and (if I did the math right) continuing through November 9, I will post one new image a day to this blog. The image must be captured with a Lensbaby lens, it does not have to be captured on that day but must be captured within the 100 day period.
Lensbaby, for the uninitiated, is a company based in our own Portland, Oregon which manufactures special effects lenses for photography. In a world that loves sharp focus, Lensbaby goes for maximum blur, distorted backgrounds and soft velvety looks. I currently own 5 Lensbaby lenses, I’ll tell you all about them as I get into the project. I’ve already picked out a sixth lens for my birthday present but that is over a month away. I have a feeling a couple more may come home to roost during the course of the project. Thanks Mom.
If you can’t wait to learn more about Lensbaby , here is a link to a blog post by a photographer I follow which may give more insight into the options available and includes photos showing the results she has gotten.
https://lensbaby.com/lensbaby-magic-flower-photography-jamie-davidson/
Today’s image was captured using the Trio 28 mounted on my new Canon M100 which I bought as a light weight walking around camera. The Trio 28 is unique in a couple of respects. First it is designed to be used with Mirrorless cameras so does not require an adaptor thus playing into my lightweight strategy. The Trio is so named because it offers three distinct Lensbaby effects. With a simple rotation of the front of the lens you can select Twist, which offers a swirly background; Velvet which offers a smooth glowing effect; or Sweet, which offers an area of sweet sharp focus that then fades off in blur. For this image I had the camera set on Velvet (I’m pretty sure). One of my issues with the Trio is it is not always obvious to me where I had the lens set. I’m trying to be more consistent about the order in which I shoot but in the case of this butterfly, it was such a game of chase I wasn’t paying too much attention. The other issue I have with the Trio is it is wide angle at 28mm which is not my favorite mode to work in. The Trio also has a fixed aperture at 3.5 so shallow depth of field is a given.
In any case, when I got this image into the computer, I decided to give it a vertical crop. I tried taking it into Topaz Studio2 for a more painterly look but didn’t see anything I liked. Then I remembered it was new texture day at the 2 Lil Owls texture club so I downloaded this month’s textures and tried one of the new ones which gave me the look I finally settled on.
I’ll try not to be so verbose in future posts but I wanted to be sure and give you some background on the project and I want to introduce each lens as I use it for the first time.