Gear Review | Lensbaby Composer

Written by Beckie

I want to talk about a totally fun little lens! It’s called the Lensbaby Composer! This lens has a unique feature…it can bend it’s focus allowing you to control the depth of field in a very unique way!

Lensbaby offers a variety of interchangeable optics (what they call their Optic-Swap System) to create a different look in your images, but the Composer comes installed with the double-glass optic. It’s designed to help create a tack-sharp point of focus. You literally bend the lens to the desired angle and manually focus on your subject.

Everything about this lens is manual, including the aperture! You can use the included magnetic wand aperture removal tool to install one of the basic aperture discs (f/2-f/22), or you can buy a set of creative custom aperture discs, and your bokeh will take on that custom shape (or get a blank set and some craft punches and make your own custom aperture discs)!

In my opinion, the major downside to this lens is that it is completely manual! This means a lot of things! Mainly, you have to know how to shoot in Manual mode, because you decide the shutter and ISO in camera, and use the aperture discs to determine the aperture.

But it also means manually focusing! This is actually the hardest part of owning this lens for me (and one of the reasons that I don’t use it often)! I am already visually impaired, so it is extremely difficult for me to manually focus on my subject! So sometimes my images will end up with my main subject not being perfectly in focus.

All of that aside, I try to have fun with this lens, because even if my images don’t come out tack sharp, the beauty of this lens is that it inspires creativity! So, whether you choose to purchase this lens (or perhaps you already own one), get out there and have some FUN and get creative with your photography!

This lens, while not a necessity, has definitely been a neat little addition to my bag! With its optional accessories (such as the creative aperture discs, the wide angle accessory kit, or even one of the different optics) the creative possibilities with this lens are endless!

(this lens is available in mounts for Canon EF (EOS), Nikon F, Sony Alpha A/Minolta Maxxum, Pentax K/Samsung GX/Sigma SD, Olympus 4/3 cameras)

 

About Beckie

I'm Beckie, a fun, think-outside-the-box mama to 2 miracle children.
I love all things photography, and being able to share in this art with others!
www.beckiegkengle.com

Comments

  1. Great review! I want to try it out!

  2. that is crazy awesome! i so want to try that!

  3. This is so cool! What a great technique! (Can I tell you how long it took me to figure out how to spell technique?! Yeesh) It would be so much fun to mess around with. Lisa~

  4. Great review! I’m super glad to see you’re having fun & getting great shots in focus. It looks like your more than capable of handling manual focus!
    Thanks for sharing,
    Michael

  5. ok I’ve just decided that I am getting this for my birthday!

Trackbacks

  1. […] the Lensbaby Composer review I posted a few weeks ago, I was contacted by Lensbaby’s Public Relations department. They loved my review and sent me […]

Speak Your Mind

*