Lensbaby Magic Lesson 4 Accessories and Fun "What’s really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer.” -William Albert Allard “The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.” Clairee Belcher -Film- Steel Magnolias Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 1 Accessorizing Your Lensbaby There are quite a few accessories available for Lensbabies. Let’s start with my very favorite one, the Macro Kit. When I added these filters to my Lensbaby it was instant love! I’ve always been a fan of selective focus, and these filters make that so easy, with magical results. This is my favorite type of Lensbaby photography. The Lensbaby Macro Kit comes with two screw on filters for the front of your Lensbaby, +4 and +10. The +4 filter will allow you to focus from 6- 13” away. It’s a good one to start with when you begin shooting with this kit. The +10 allows you to focus 3-6” away. You can also stack them together (+14) and focus as close as 2-3 inches away. The plane of focus is quite small at really close working distances with any lens, but the tilt-shift feature of your Lensbaby gives you a much different type of control over the focus plane. I find these filters to be amazingly sharp for such inexpensive glass. I love using the Macro Kit for my flower (in Lensbaby lingo flowers are “bots”, short for botanicals) photography. I love being able to selectively focus on one element of the flower- a line, petal, shape, curve, dew drop... and bend the rest of the image into a soft blur. I focus on what is important to me and bend the Lensbaby to best enhance that feature, simplifying the rest of the photograph. My recent flower work is nearly exclusively shot with my Lensbabies. Straight macro lenses just don’t give me the interpretive, less literal captures I am seeking. Try these filters, I think you’ll love them. I could show you hundreds of sample images with the Macro Kit, but here are a few of my favorites, all with the double glass optic: Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 2 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 3 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 4 If you are using the Sweet 35/50 or Edge 80 optics, the Lensbaby Macro kit will not work. You can buy aftermarket Macro Diopters in 46mm thread size for those optics or use the Lensbaby Macro Converters. Instead of screwing onto the tip of the optic, the converters are placed between the optic and the lens. A little less convenient that the Macro Kit, at least for the type of work that I do. Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 5 If you have extension tubes you can use them with your Lensbaby to get closer to your subjects. I used all three of my tubes to capture this dewdrop. Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 6 Wide Angle Macro Kit (This item isn’t currently listed at lensbaby.com anymore, but I want to include it in case you find one somewhere else.) This lens is a .6x wide angle conversion lens with two elements. If you unscrew the front element while leaving the rear element attached to your Lensbaby, the lens is in macro mode. In this mode you can focus as close as 2 inches from your subject. I don’t use this lens, I like the options (+4. +10. +14) that the macro filter kit gives me. If you think you’ll be more interested in shooting wide angle but want the ability to go to macro without buying a separate kit, this will work for you. Wide Angle/ Telephoto Kit (no macro in this one). This kit consists of two separate lenses that screw onto your Lensbaby. Without adding one of these lenses, your Lensbaby with Double/Single/ Plastic Soft optic has an approximate focal length of 50 mm. Adding the wide angle changes this to 30 mm. Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 7 Adding the telephoto instead changes the focal length to 80 mm. I like to use the Telephoto when shooting portraits, or when I want to fill more of my frame with my subject. Both of these attachment lenses have 46 mm threads on the front so you can add a polarizer or other type of filter. The Wide Angle Lens in this kit is lots of fun to play with. When really bent, it creates sort of a fisheye lens effect along the edge- bending up creates the effect on the bottom, bending down curves the top area of your scene. Be careful when focusing/bending with this lens, if you bend too far the curve of the lens barrel blocks light (especially when using a full frame DSLR) and creates a dark crescent shape on the border of your image. If you are wondering what the red ribbon is for on the pouch to the right in my photo, it’s something I added to distinguish between the tele and the wide attachment, it seemed I was always grabbing the wrong one as the bags look the same. :) A few wide angle shots: Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 8 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 9 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 10 Super Wide Angle Conversion Lens This attachment converts your focal length to 21mm. Lots of fun to play with, for either landscapes or macro, as you can focus as close as about 3 inches away from your subject. As with the regular wide angle, major bends will have dark edges around the frame with a full frame sensor camera, and lines will appear distorted. So that you can see the differences in focal length, here is a set of images I shot with the Composer and Double Glass at f/4 with: 1) No attachments 2) Telephoto 3) Wide Angle 4) Super Wide Angle- notice the edge and corner vignetting Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 11 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 12 A few more super wide angle shots: Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 13 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 14 Step- Up /Shade Using the Step-Up Shade allows you to add 52mm filters (polarizers, warming filters, etc), which are much easier to find than the Lensbaby’s standard 37mm thread size. It also provides a bit of lens shade, which can be great for shooting in sunny conditions. The shade isn’t very tall, I have found it’s effect as a shade or hood to be minimal at best. Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 15 So, if you do have you have neutral density, polarizing, warming, or other filters, try using them with your Lensbaby. If you don’t have them in 37 mm, 46mm for Sweet35/50 or 52 mm with the Step- Up/Shade, you can just hold them in front of the lens once you have your focus locked. A bit tough with the bellows models, it feels like you need an extra set of hands! Filters are great for slowing down the shutter for long exposures, such as when you want to create dreamy moving water images with veiling of the water. Creative Aperture Kit Lensbaby makes a set of creative aperture disks which can add some fun to your shots. The set includes a star aperture, a heart aperture, and 5 blank aperture disks that you can cut into any shape you’d like. Any out of focus specular highlights will take on the shape of whatever is cut out of the disk. The effect can be subtle, or, depending on the strength of light, more defined. Remember that these aperture disks will increase your depth of field and are for the optics with aperture rings only. Here are some creative aperture images using the star aperture: Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 16 The effect can be subtle, or more pronounced depending on the highlights in your image. Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 17 You can also make your own aperture disks using black posterboard. Just trace the inside and outside of your 2.8 aperture disk on the posterboard. Cut whatever shape you want within that inner circle, being careful to stay inside it. (You can use a paper hole punch for any round edge shapes.) If you wants lots of depth of field, make your cut-out shape small. if you want lots of blur, make the shape large, it’s up to you. When you are finished with your aperture design, cut just outside the outer circle. Place your custom made aperture disk inside the lens (as you would any aperture disk) and place your 2.8 disk over it to hold it in place. These are much easier to cut than the thick Lensbaby blank disks. Capturing Moving Subjects Freezing movement with a Lensbaby is a tricky but fun challenge! I have found the best approach is to pre-focus on a given area and snap the shutter as your subject moves into that area. You will definitely want to shoot lots of images when working on this technique. Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 18 Lensbaby Magic Kathleen Clemons 19 Panning If you want a real challenge, try using your Lensbaby for panning a moving object. This isn’t easy with a regular lens, so it’s a fun challenge for sure! Put your camera on a tripod, focus on a moving object, follow it with your camera as you click the shutter.