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Well, I spent last Monday afternoon up in Yokohama
testing out my new
lensbaby and the verdict is now it....
-It has horrible chromatic abberations in even slightly
challenging lighting conditions.
-It is a real bugger to focus. (but I started to get
the hang of it after a while)
-Changing apertures is about as low tech as it gets.
You pry out a rubber washer and the plastic aperture
ring falls out. You then place either a f4, f5.6, or
f8 ring agaist the front element of the lens element
and then wedge it back in with the rubber washer. (No
fancy switches or dial here...) If you want f2.8 you
just use the rubber washer alone.
-It looks like a piece of vaccum cleaner hose on the
front of my camera. (People really gave me some strange
looks. Especially when I went into a camera store with
it.)
-The corners of the frame are very soft with a lot
of light falloff.
Yes, this piss poor excuse for a lens is about the
lowest tech, lowest quality optical instrument I have
ever used......AND I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!
This is exactly what I needed to get away from my recent
pattern of "polite" photos as it was so eloquantly
put by Jon V in the comments of the last post.
Churning out perfectly sharp photo after perfectly
sharp photo had become a bore to me and this new low
tech pocket rocket has re-sparked my enthusiasm for
photography.
It really allows you to capture not just an image,
but a mood as well.
Are the images fuzzy?
Yes.
Can they get oversaturated?
Yes.
Is the focus spot usually a little off from where it
would have been placed in an optiomum situation?
Yes.
Does it produce images comepletely different from anythig
else?
A big YES.
I know a lot of people will not like the results, but
that is OK. I also don't like some of them. But the
mere fact that is producess some truley unique images
has had the desired effect on me. I'm rip, roaring,
and ready to go out and capture as much light as I can
in the coming months.
By no means will I stop taking photos with my regular
assortment of lenses. There are times when you want
absolute sharpness and accurate colors. But there are
also times when you are not so much trying to capture
an image of a place, but rather attempting
to capture the feel of it instead.
Yes, this little beauty has found a special place in
my camera bag from now on. It was the best $100 I have
spent on a piece of photography equipment yet.
So from now on, whenever I need to inject a little
"mojo" into my photo excursions all I need
to do is start using my new little secret weapon. The
mere fact that is has so many operational limitations
on it due to its very low tech design forces me to see
things in a new, fresh way.
--
In other news, I am coming up on my 300th post here
at Sushicam. (That's almost 2,100 in Dog Posts!)
I think this is number 298.
Damn!
I can't belive this site has continued to grow for
so long. I certainly never intended for it to become
so well known when I set out on this long and winding
path of photoblogging Japan but somehow I just can't
seem to stop doing it now.
It has become a habit of sorts for me to keep posting
new material for all of you.
But to tell the truth I have my own slefish motivation
for doing this as well. It forces me to keep a running
public log of my photography and this has been quite
a help for me in getting feedback and tracking my development
and changes in style over the years.
Comment 43
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