10Nov/094
Lensbaby .42X Super Wide Angle Accessory Lens
Product Description
Converts Lensbaby optics from a 50mm focal length to a 21mm focal length, while only slightly shrinking the Sweet Spot. Compatible with the Double Glass, Single Glass, Plastic, and Pinhole/Zone Plate optics as well as our legacy Lensbaby lenses 37mm threaded and screws onto the front of any Lensbaby for ease of use.... More >>
- 0.42X wide-angle conversion lens attaches to Lensbaby Composer and Muse
- ideal for panoramic photography
- approximate focal length: 21mm on full-frame digital cameras, 31.5mm on Sony Alpha and Nikon APS-C sensor cameras, 33.6mm on Canon APS-C sensor cameras, and 42mm on Olympus four-thirds type sensor cameras
- minimum focus distance: 2-3/4" from lens front
November 10th, 2009 - 21:01
This is a really nice artistic lens. I have heard some people do not like the Lensbaby, but if you are a fan, you will love this. It has great blur and opens up a whole new world of wide angle photography for me.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 10th, 2009 - 22:31
I received the Lensbaby Composer as a birthday gift back in June and I was immediately hooked. The creative possibilities with this selective focus lens are incredible. I have since bought most of the accessories and alternative optics for the system to expand my repetoire. The entire system is so reasonably priced that it’s hard not to buy all of the options. I use the wide angle glass optic more for getting in tight on my subject than what some might intuitively think you would do with a wide angle optic. I can get in and focus within about 2 inches from my subject which gives me a very sharp focal point and a nice fade to “out of focus” on everything else (which is the whole point of a Lensbaby). I highly recommend the Composer over the 3G or classic model as it is easier to lock in your effect. These add on optics then very easily just screw into the barrel end of the Lensbaby.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 11th, 2009 - 01:01
As my friends have noticed. I sort of have this thing with Lensbaby. I love it. It can do no wrong. It’s why I bought a DSLR. And I love shooting wide and until now found it to be my only issue with using my Lensbabies.
This lens is great at 21mm for indoor shooting, close ups, AND for we smaller sensor folks. The Lensbaby’s native 50mm is a bit close for some of the shooting I do so I kept the Lensbaby 0.6 Wide Angle lens attached by default. But THIS new lens really gives great coverage and closer to the Full Frame users Lensbaby experience. The sweet spot of sharp focus is smaller with this lens also.
Here is the worm in the apple and it’s no fault of Lensbaby, but rather my poor breeding and my optometrist. I’m blind as a bat, (Answering a lot of questions about many of my photos for most of regular photoblog viewers) and have some difficulty seeing to focus this. The Super Wide Angle makes some things so small I really had to strain to see it. Your experience may vary but I felt it important enough to mention. You can also see the edge of this lens sooner than I had expected when bending it but it didn’t take away from most of the test shots.
My conclusion: Buy this. Buy it as your first accessory. The rest you can buy to show off but for the biggest bang for your buck, this 80 dollar lens will open up whole new vistas for you.
*Update* When I unscrewed the adapter to try different aperture rings I found there wasn’t one in there. The Lensbaby is more of a challenge to hit a crystal clear sweet spot like that. Once I put even the 2.8 ring in my 3G I found it clear enough to easily use.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 11th, 2009 - 01:54
First, the good. I have to say the build quality of this super wide lens is actually superb! It feels much more solid and has hint of that Nikkor manual lens feel to it– metal body, solid weight, smooth, well built. It is certainly much better built than the plastic/aluminum Lensbaby Composer.
Now the important part– image quality. I really wanted to love using this lens. As you know the Lensbaby is wonderful on a full frame camera, with nice big sweet spot and amazing creamy bokeh for pleasing looking subject isolation. However, on a APS-C cropped sensor camera (Rebel, Canon 20D/30D/40D/50D, Nikon D60/70/80/90/200/300) it is just too much zoom as a general walk around lense. Thus I bought this Wide Angle accessory. The idea was to use 2 cameras while shooting my clients 1) a D300 + Lensbaby Composer + Super Wide and 2) a D700 plus a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8. That would have been the ultimate outdoor shoot setup, but it just didn’t work out that way.
While the bokeh on a Lensbaby (without any filter) is creamy, soft, and just amazingly pleasing, I can’t say the same when this super wide angle lens is on. With it, chromatic aberration is the worst I’ve seen even with the default double glass element in Lensbaby, without even trying. It is so noticeable that people who have no idea what chromatic aberration is, notice it. Instead of seeing creamy soft bokeh that I’m used to seeing, you’ll see abrupt separation between white and blue/green tint, like very noticeable double-vision, which is very distracting and ugly. There is so much chromatic aberration that Lightroom 2.3 can only correct about 20% of it. For the reason that image quality is sub-par, I would have given this accessory 1 star, but I’m sure there are people who aren’t bothered by this and may even find it artistic. And also, the built quality is superb. So I’m giving it 2 stars instead.
I really enjoy using the bare naked Lensbaby, but this accessory has got to be the most unusable I’ve ever bought from Lensbaby. The aperture kit and the macro kits are all nice. But this wide angle lens is a big disappointment. I’m defaulting back to the 0.6X wide angle which IMHO is much better.
Rating: 2 / 5