Original Lensbabies review, after finally having the Canon 20D repaired.
Chris and Jake randomly asked if I’d like to review one of the original Lensbabies lenses ages ago. I’m only just now getting around to it. Is it way too late? Possibly, especially since they’ve now released a second and improved version of the lens. Though even taking that into consideration I honestly can’t say that it would change my opinion any. Basically they sent me the lens and I went at it.
After toying with it to figure out the focus and the aperture and such I grabbed a couple shots. I really wasn’t impressed with any of the shots as it really seemed to be too sensitive to movement when it came it getting the specific area I wanted in focus. After taking 5 shots I went to remove the lens and started having major difficulties. Having used non Canon lenses on my 20D before this was a bit unusual. After pressing down on the lens quite a bit more than normal it finally came out. But not without damaging the bracket and pins slightly. Because of this I had to send the camera into Canon for repair which took a week and a half. I received the camera back as good as new but I refused to pop the lens back on.
So in this post we’ve got the one shot I’d actually think that might be worth posting. The end result is interesting but nothing one couldn’t do in Photoshop. Since I’d classify this as a post processing effect I’d say that’s where it should actually be staying. When shooting digital it’s really important that you’re keeping original digital negative, whether that be the untouched JPG or the RAW image. Because this lens is no where near the quality of any one of my Canon lenses it wouldn’t make sense to shoot with it. It would be much better to shoot with the Canon, visualize the concept in my head then apply a Lensbabies like effect to the photo in Photoshop. That alone makes me think that for digital photography the Lensbaby idea isn’t all that great.
Now if I were a film photographer then I’ll admit that this lens would actually be pretty cool. But that’s not how I tested it so I won’t go into that. Now realistically if I hadn’t been jaded by the fact that the lens messed up my camera I probably would’ve used it quite a bit more and probably have gotten much more experience with it to get some decent shots. I’m normally all for cool gizmos like this lens but this is one time where I’d fall back on my Photoshop skills.
So what’s the bottom line? Well, I wouldn’t buy one, nor would I recommend it. Save your money and buy Photoshop and become proficient at using that.
Tags: Comments, Photography
