Show Notes for Digital Photography Life #6: Focus on the Lensbaby

Craig Strong comes on to tell us all about the Lensbaby, one of the most-affordable tools out there for taking your photography to the next level. 

Lenbabies are selective focus tools that can make your photos look as straightforward or surrealistic as you want. By putting the focus where you want it, Lensbabies let you direct your viewer's eyes to the most important part of your picture. 

Their latest little wonder is the Composer (this Amazon link will save you $9 - at least it did when I wrote this).  It's my favorite Lensbaby so far; it's certainly the easiest to use for repeatable results. But you might also want to look at their entry-level Muse, which can be faster - and more fun - to play with. It's the best $99 you'll spend if you want to explore more creative uses for your DSLR.

You can check out my totally-amateur-having-fun-with-it-first-Composer-shots here. 

Popular Photography just raved about the Lensbaby line:

The new Lensbabies aren't ever going to replace your supersharp autofocus prime or zoom lenses for day-to-day shooting (for most photographers, at least). But they offer a whole lot of fun, with more control than ever -- which means maybe even more people will catch the bending bug.

If you want to enter our drawing for a free Lensbaby Composer, complete this descriptive phrase from the products homepage "Smooth and __________." (You can find the answer here.

Here are the rules for our first Digital Photography Life  contest:

Title: The Joy of Photography

Theme: A subject demonstrating the theme of the joy of photography.

Technique: It's up to you.

1. Make a photo. The photo must be one that you created. Please include the original exif info within the image.

2. You may enter up to three photographs. If more than three photographs are entered, only the first three received shall be entered.

3. Images must be JPG, PNG, or GIF images, less than 24MB.

4. Email a jpg image to dplife@email.smugmug.com

5. Attach only one photo per email. Please send one email per entry.

6. In the Subject, enter: dplife (Must be all lower case)

7. In the Body, enter: Your name AND email address AND your caption.

8. Make SURE you send the email in PLAIN TEXT (not HTML or Rich Text or it won't be accepted)

9. We need to approve each photo that you upload, so please have patience for your photo to show up in this gallery.

10. Only one image per entrant can be eligible as a finalist.

11. Photos shal be accepted through Friday, 23 January, 2009.

12. Enjoy Being Creative!

You can see your photos - as well as ours - on our SmugMug site for the show: DPLife.SmugMug.com .

If you want to read about the tiny-but-unwanted black spots in some photos taken with Canon's new 5D Mark II, this story gives you the skinny.

That's it for this week. Please let us know what you think of the show, and we wish everyone a happy holiday! 

Scott 

Comments

[Bill Graham]

Scott,
Haven't had a chance to listen to #6 but I just want to wish you, Michael and your families a happy holiday season and a great New Year!

Thanks for all your work! Bill

[Roger]

Episode 6 was a good show. Thanks to the interview with Craig Strong I know about the Lensbaby line, what they do, how they do it, and why I might want one.

I got the answer to the question, how do I enter the drawing?

[Amy Lemaniak]

Great show, thank for all the info on the Lensbaby. How do we enter the drawing??

[Laurel Housden]

Hey Scott and Michael....do you still need my help with the contest?

[Fabrizio]

I'm possibly a bit late, but has the drawing for the Lensbaby taken place, and if not how do I enter?

[MarianaWHITE35]

I would like to propose not to hold back until you get enough cash to order different goods! You can just get the mortgage loans or just short term loan and feel yourself free