From the Manufacturer
PhotoFocus Magazine awarded Lensbabies its "Best of Show" award as the most outstanding product of the 2004 PhotoPlus Expo. This award comes shortly after
Professional Photographer Magazine awarded Lensbabies its coveted Hot 1 Award for 2004 as the best new manual-focus camera lens of the year.
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Images taken with the Original Lensbaby.
(Click for larger views.) |
The Original Lensbaby is a flexible camera lens that creates a 'sweet spot' area of focus surrounded by a graduated blur, that photographers can move around the image area by bending the flexible lens tubing. The Original Lensbaby brings the soft, roughed-up Holga look to digital and film SLR photography, but with greater versatility, convenience, creative control, and new effects. Photographers can control the size of the sharp area and the overall level of blur by using one of four aperture settings: f2.8, f4, f5.6, and f8. The Original Lensbaby is available in camera mounts for almost all SLR camera bodies.
The Original Lensbaby combines several vintage camera technologies into a novel, patent-pending combination. The shooter focuses a Lensbaby using the same general principle used with a bellows camera--by moving the focusing collar in and out with the fingertips. The photographer moves the 'sweet spot' of focus around the picture plane by bending the glass optic out of a parallel position to the image capture plane, like a tilt-shift lens. Finally, reminiscent of Waterhouse stops, the photographer swaps apertures by removing one aperture ring and replacing it with another.
The Original Lensbaby is simple and easy to use. Most photographers get rewarding images within a short practice period.
While technologically rooted in photography's early history, The Original Lensbaby addresses the creative needs of today's often completely digital photographer. The Lensbaby creates tantalizing and gorgeous effects, but does the work in the lens rather than the photographer later applying software filters to add a creative look to their images.
Photographers have found that using a Lensbaby enhances their creativity by giving them a fresh look and a new way to create interest within their photos. Creativity may be the decisive reason that most photographers add a Lensbaby to their camera bag, but nostalgia is also a draw.
The Original Contax/Yashica Mount will fit Contax and Yashica SLR cameras. (Note: A Lensbaby does not communicate electronically with your camera body.)
