Anyone actually use a Lensbaby?

[William Petruzzo]

lensebabies have no practical use whatsoever, and as previously stated, the effects can be easily duplicated in PP.
if you want to be taken seriously, save your money for something useful.
however if you just want something to play with to post "look at my lensebaby" pics on the internet, then $60 is not a bad price for ine.

After looking around at the effect produced in photoshop, I disagree that it could be done easily. Otherwise we'd see more done convincingly. There's a gritty authenticity to the effect in the lens that I haven't seen successfully reproduced in PP.

But the most important question is what 'taken seriously' means. I mean, photography is art.

 

[JerryPH]

I find no reason to pick one of those up, I can pretty much duplicate the effects in post process.

how do you do that?

Look up how to do radial blurs in CS2, 3 or 4, they all can do it.

 

[JerryPH]

Here's a couple of quickies.

Flower Fade on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

What defines that as a lens baby shot? It looks like something no more than a fast lens and blurred background?

A 50mm F/1.4 can do that without a lens baby.

 

[Iron Flatline]

There's another aspect to the LB, which is not just the final image, but the fun while shooting with one. I don't use mine often, either... but it is fun, and the price is commensurate.

 

[Josh66]

I'll probably still get one. It sounds really fun.


I also don't think the Photoshop reproduction looks quite the same...
Kinda like fake IR, it looks OK - but you can tell that it isn't the real thing.


EDIT

Wow, they take tiny filters (37mm)... I think I'll have to get a 37mm IR filter too, I think it would be pretty cool.

 

[JerryPH]

As IF said, at least the price is reasonable for what it does.

 

[Reese's PB Luver]

Don't forget the neat effects you can make with differently shaped (star, heart, etc.) aperture disks! Check out the example images on the LensBaby site. You can get blank aperture disks to cut your own preferred shapes for true uniqueness.

LensBabies are really neat selective-focus lenses, IMO.

As for the previously-posted Photoshopped image, any zoom lens can make that - just zoom out while the shutter is open. And, no, it (motion blur) is not the same effect as selective focus.