Day Eight: Lensbaby at Boothbay Harbor

One very strong case for full-frame cameras is the Lensbaby. On an APS-C camera, the Lensbaby is about 75mm—which is ideal for portraits. But you often need something a little wider, and on a full frame camera, the Lensbaby’s 50mm length is quite versatile. Sure, there are two wide angle adapters, but it’s nice to use the Lensbaby naked and be able to swap out those aperture disks at will. This is why I recommend the Lensbaby Composer Pro with the Sweet 35 optic for first time Lensbaby buyers who use the APS-C format.

The Sweet 35 Optic, as its name implies, has a 35mm focal length, and a built-in 12-bladed diaphragm with adjustable apertures from f/2.5 to f/22. It’s ideal for both APS-C and full-frame cameras.

Then, when you’re ready to move up to a full-frame camera (or need an excellent portrait solution) you can swap out the Sweet 35 for any of the other four classic optics.

If, like me you went for the standard composer, then the wide angle (45mm equivalent), and super wide angle (30.5mm equivalent) converters are for you. (Be forewarned: the super wide-angle has a bit of a fisheye-esque curvature to its wonderfully versatile width!)

As with the Samyang 8mm Fisheye, the Gossen DigiSix meter comes in handy for getting you in the exposure ballpark. So, I assemble everything and head out.

Tip: Dockside is no place to swap out aperture discs! I didn’t even attempt it! It’s far too easy to drop one overboard!

I ordered the soft focus accessory aperture kit, which gives me the three aperture discs you get with the soft focus optic, plus a duplicate set of the standard discs. Good to have as spares. Lensbaby is not cheap, but their quality is impeccable, and they’re not sneaky by making you have to buy the double-glass optic all over again just to get the soft-focus aperture discs.

Unfortunately, the weather has turned, and it’s overcast and foggy today. So perhaps I’ll revisit the Lensbaby on another day. For now however, I’ll scour the harbor to see if anything interesting comes my way.