Lensbaby Composer -- I Only Have Eyes for You
Perhaps you’ve seen the effect in wedding photography before: the edges of the photo in a blissful blur with the couple in focus, driving home the lyrics, “I only have eyes for you.” The Composer lens was recently released from Lensbaby, which produces a line of selective focus SLR camera lenses creating this neat effect.
In general with the Lensbaby, you really have to have the picture set up beforehand. Moving objects and spontaneous photos are more challenging with this lens. In addition, the Composer does not have zoom capability, meaning you have to move the camera closer or farther away from the subject if the framing is not quite right. Posed shots and inanimate objects are much better targets as they allow you to get the settings right.
The Composer requires that you move the flexible lens to focus on your subject. The neck itself is a little creaky. You do not have to hold the lens in place, it does that very well by itself, but when adjusting the lens, it is somewhat difficult to apply just the right amount of pressure so that you don’t miss your mark. This photo is using the Composer with F4 aperture and an obviously right-tilting focus.
The Composer comes with a range of apertures from 2.8 to 22, that all have to be manually inserted into the lens. Lensbaby made this process easier by providing a handy magnetic wand (and storage device) that allows you to swap out one aperture for another with ease. The lens has the downside of not allowing me to use auto light metering or autofocus on my camera, forcing me to set everything manually. Supposedly auto light metering compatibility is not a problem with all cameras, but it is with my Nikon D90, most other Nikon D- and N-series bodies and apparently with some Fuji S-series bodies as well. Bodies with which auto light metering is compatible often just need to be set to “Aperture Priority” and will work fine.
The higher the aperture, the more subtle the effect, whereas lower apertures have a more noticeable effect as their focus is much more narrow and the blur is therefore much greater. Because the aperture is fixed on these lenses, the higher the aperture, the less light appears through the viewfinder. So an aperture of 8 is darker through the viewfinder than an aperture of 2, and with an aperture of 22 it becomes increasingly difficult to tell if the subject is in focus as it is so dark. Normally this is not a problem with other lenses as they compensate for higher apertures by keeping the aperture wide until the photo is shot, so the viewfinder always lets in enough light to see the image. With the fixed apertures of Lensbaby, however, you’ll need to increase your night vision a bit if you want to use those higher apertures like F11 and F22. Below is a more subtle effect with an F8 aperture.
What is attractive about the effect that Lensbabies create is that it blurs even subjects that are in the same depth of field. It focuses attention nicely on the subject and often gives a sense of motion in a photograph that is still.
Best of all, the Composer is incredibly light and very small, allowing you to take it in your camera bag as a spare lens for those more creative shots. In addition to the Composer, the Lensbaby also produces the Control Freak and the Muse. Both accomplish the same blur technique as the Composer, but the Control Freak allows for more control and is advertised for the more methodical user. The Muse is the cheapest lens and is advertised as looser and faster.
The Composer is available for around $270 (make sure you buy the right “mount” for your camera) and has a variety of optics and accessories that can be added on.
