14 DAY TRIAL // The Lensbaby company (formerly known as Lensbabies) launched a couple of years ago a series of creative, bendable "distorting" lenses, which were targeting mainly those people closely interested in special-effect photography. However, after two years of providing pretty much the same lineup, the company decided that it was about time to bring something new to the table and, at Photokina, launched three new Lensbaby lenses, namely The Composer, The Muse and The Control Freak.
While the new Muse and Control Freak replace the current Original, Lensbaby 2.0, and Lensbaby 3G lenses, the Composer represents a completely fresh design, based on a ball and socket configuration. However, these three models retain the main design features of their predecessors, allowing digital photographers to control depth of field by bringing one area of a photo into sharpest focus with the Sweet Spot surrounded by graduated blur. By bending the Lensbaby lens, the photographer moves the sharp area around the photo for customized creative effects.
The new Composer retains its position after being bent, without requiring a locking mechanism, and it is easy to use even with one hand. Photographers don't have to squeeze the lens to focus, but simply tilt the lens to a desired angle and then focus with a barrel focusing ring, which has a special design that dampens the optic’s movement (requiring greater rotation to move the optic in and out) as one approaches infinity, making it easier to focus on subjects from 10 feet to infinity.
One of the main features common to all three lenses is the Lensbaby Optic Swap System, which allows photographers to change the optic in their Lensbaby in a very fast and simple manner, by popping the optic out and installing a different one using an Optic Swap Tool (supplied with the new one). Each optic has different features and image qualities, but they all feature magnetically levitating interchangeable aperture disks, allowing aperture settings from f/2 to f/22.
The Lensbaby Optic Swap System will include four interchangeable optic options: Double Glass (multi-coated doublet, 50mm), Single Glass (uncoated, 50mm), Plastic (50mm) and Pinhole/Zone plate (f/177 aperture hole for pinhole photography and f/19 Zone plate opening).
These rather unusual lenses from Lensbaby are actually pretty decently priced, compared to some of the more “classic” lenses. Thus, the new Composer with Double Glass installed will sell for $270, the Muse for $150 with the Double Glass optic installed or for $100 with the Plastic optic installed, while the Control Freak will be available for an approximate $270 with the Double Glass optic Installed.