New to Lensbaby

[kathiemt]

Hi everyone, I'm in Australia and first heard about Lensbaby lenses last year. I got a Velvet 56 from my husband as a combined birthday/Christmas present, although it took 4 months to finally arrive. So now I'm learning to use it. Not being a natural manual lens user there is a learning curve but starting to get the gist of it. We had a small amount of rain overnight (it's late summer here) so managed to get some raindrops on roses to practice with. I'm using a Nikon D7100, and was set at 1/125 and 800ISO, F11.

I've come here to see what others do and to learn.

 

[CherylL]

Welcome Kathie to the forum. Very nice water droplet photos. My favorite is the 3rd one. I have the lensbaby twist. The manual focus has a learning curve. I use the magnifier on the camera to see if the center is in focus. The twist has the center as focus. There are a few lensbaby users here on the forum. And I think they may have the Velvet.

 

[kathiemt]

Welcome Kathie to the forum. Very nice water droplet photos. My favorite is the 3rd one. I have the lensbaby twist. The manual focus has a learning curve. I use the magnifier on the camera to see if the center is in focus. The twist has the center as focus. There are a few lensbaby users here on the forum. And I think they may have the Velvet.

Thank you, much appreciated. Glad you like the images.

 

[snowbear]

Very nice. @SquarePeg has one or two of the LBs; she may drop by in a bit.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I have an Original and a 2.0, both mechanican/manual. But I'm used to that since I have film cameras that are mechanical oldies but goodies. These are nice and I like the 3rd one too.

If you haven't already I'd spend time on their website, and play around with it and see what you get with it. I haven't used mine in awhile, but found them fun. It might take time to get the hang of it and figure out how to get interesting photos with it, so I'd enjoy it and give yourself time with it.

 

[SquarePeg]

Beautiful shots Kathie! Welcome. Looking forward to seeing more from you.

I also have the LBV56. It’s a great lens for florals and for macro. It’s also nice for landscape. It’s not wide enough to get a traditional landscape but can make an interesting perspective on pieces of a scene.

@Dean_Gretsch has posted many amazing LBV56 photos.

 

[SquarePeg]

A great tip for manually focusing the 56 is to use focus peaking at f4 to get your manual focus then adjust the aperture wider if needed.

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

Yes, what SP said above^^^^^. I have found focusing in the middle of the aperture range and then adjusting after really helps also. She gave some very good advice there. I like your photos very much! Welcome to the forum!