January 2012

Lensbaby Composer.

Last week I bought myself a Lensbaby. I have never tried one myself before, but I sure like its effects.
I had a shoot this Saturday where I tested shooting with it. To be honest, I will need some practice with it!
Shooting with a tilf-shift before I thought was more steady, but not quite the same effect of course. And not in the same price league, at all.
The composer is easy to move around and to create different effects with, but sometimes I had hard times to get the effect not effecting the model’s face. But then again, I am sure I just need some more training with it.

I read that if you’re focusing first, having your model i focus before you tilt the lens it would be easier to create an effect from this. Of course you can choose yourself how you’d like to do, but I will try this next time shooting with it. Another thing with Composer is that you change the aperture in the lens, I went with the F/2.8 but will definitively try the other ones also.

When you like an effect you can lock this with the Composer, which will let you to keep the effect throughout your shoot. Before I was thinking of getting a Lensbaby Muse, but after testing composer I think this one will be better for me, because reading about the Muse I think I want to have a little more control over the image than Muse can give me. But, I really enjoy the effects the Muse create.

The Composer is a little more expensive than Muse and they look a little different to each other.

Composer Specs

• Double Glass (Multi-coated Optical Glass Doublet) included
• Focal Length: about 50 mm
• Focus Type: Manual
• Aperture Type: Interchangeable, magnetic aperture disks
• Apertures: f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22
• Minimum Focus: about 18″ (45cm) / Maximum Focus: infinity
• Size: 2.25″(5.7cm) h x 2.5″(6.35cm) w / Weight: 3.7 oz (104.9g)
• No electronic communication between the lens and the camera body
• Available in mounts for Canon EF (EOS), Nikon F, Sony Alpha A / Minolta Maxxum, Pentax K / Samsung GX, Olympus E1 / Panasonic Lumix DMC

Here’s a test shot from last Saturday!
Modelling is Hillevi/Arathin