Niz said:
It might be interesting to get the tilt transformer one to turn your good Nikon glass into a tilt shift lens. I bet there would be lots of great and interesting images to be made with that combo. I was thinking about checking it out on my 28-70mm 2.8 when I'm at B and H next week to see if it is as good and I think it could be.

I believe the tilt transformer only works on micro 3/4, it converts larger (for a larger 1.5 crop) lenses into tilt and shift... correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have such camera..

poster said:
I think it's a damn waste of money. I bet my glass ashtray would be sharper than these toys. But each to his own. I guess you like the Holga look.

Thanks for your comment.. sharpness was a concern to me.. I'm not against the vintage look, but I'm not a fan of lomography... I never really liked the idea of having cheap glass because that's obviously a loss in sharpness and other lenses weaknesses.. but I'm considering the lensbaby almost only for video... which is lower resolution, Am I right to suppose that the lens defaults will be less important on video than on pics? I saw some video shot with lens baby and kinda liked it.. I guess that's all it takes.

swartzfeger said:
I have the Lensbaby Composer double glass optic, which is the sharpest of the lensbaby family. The pinhole/plastic/single glass optics produce images that look like shit imho (and I like toy/lomo/holga photography).

Once in a blue moon I can make a stunning image, but it's a lot of work. No metering, physically changing aperture with small magnetic discs, strange planar dof which is nearly impossible to see in a viewfinder. They're a bitch to use but magical if you nail a shot.

I love mine. I like challenges. I don't however think it's worth $250.

Would love to have a PC-E for creative landscape work, but I don't have $2000 falling out of my butt.

Oh thanks.

So you can't see that weird DOF in the viewfinder?? this is weird.. and very good to know.. since I want to work with video.. I guess the live view shows it? I don't mind the discs and lack of metering either.

I'd gladly get that wide nikkor tilt&shift but I don't have that budget either.. I also came across a guy who made a short tilt&shift based video and chose to shoot it with normal lenses with the effect in post rather than using the real lens, even after he rented it.. He explains his reasons there: http://aerofilm.blogspot.com/2010/02/sandpit-short-film-by-aero-director-sam.html

very interesting.

I still think I'll go for it.. after all if I don't like it I can always resell without losing too much since I'm already buying it used... I would never get that stuff for photography.. I think it's cheesy and not high grade enough to be reliable.. but for video art, music videos, stuff like that, I think it could just work with some stuff I want to make.

Thanks a bunch for your advices and personal experiences.. I'll most likely give my impressions in this topic for anyone who cares haha..

I have some forum friends that are great lensbaby practitioners. It does take some patience and expertise to get good pictures. I would get a PC-E lens if I were to go that way I think it gives 2 more degrees of freedom.

Sounds like a good deal if 1) You really like the look of Holga or Dana and/or 2) You don't mind really out of focus photos.

I have owned the 2.0 and then the Control Freak and did not like them one bit. Not easy to use and very hard to control anything about them. You really need a camera with TTL (through the lens) metering and even then it maybe gets you close. I maybe got 2-3 shots I liked out of a few hundred.

Some really like them and the images they can get are amazing - I am not one of those for sure.

Im curious about the tilt transformer. Sounds like it would be really fun to put on a really wide angle lens....and what kind of weird stuff would happen if I put a PC-E onto a tilt transformer?

Niz said:
I was thinking about checking it out on my 28-70mm 2.8 when I'm at B and H next week to see if it is as good and I think it could be.

Id like to know how that goes. Could you give us an update after you're back from B&H?

I think they are a waste of money but if you get it as a gift, it's a fun little challenge.

Really if you want one, don't buy it yourself, tell family/friends who don't know a thing about photography to get it for you. Makes a great gift.

I have the Lensbaby Composer double glass optic, which is the sharpest of the lensbaby family. The pinhole/plastic/single glass optics produce images that look like shit imho (and I like toy/lomo/holga photography).

Once in a blue moon I can make a stunning image, but it's a lot of work. No metering, physically changing aperture with small magnetic discs, strange planar dof which is nearly impossible to see in a viewfinder. They're a bitch to use but magical if you nail a shot.

I love mine. I like challenges. I don't however think it's worth $250.

Would love to have a PC-E for creative landscape work, but I don't have $2000 falling out of my butt.

It might be interesting to get the tilt transformer one to turn your good Nikon glass into a tilt shift lens. I bet there would be lots of great and interesting images to be made with that combo. I was thinking about checking it out on my 28-70mm 2.8 when I'm at B and H next week to see if it is as good and I think it could be.

I think you would be better off making your own, and then if you like it, spend the money on one.

I think it's a damn waste of money. I bet my glass ashtray would be sharper than these toys. But each to his own. I guess you like the Holga look.

Hey.. I'm considering getting a lensbaby composer with the double optic glass, soft focus optic and the fisheye one.. I got a deal for those used, all of them for 300$ so it's tempting.

When I first heard of lensbaby I thought they were cheesy (and I still do) but I'm finally getting video on my DSLR and my video work is way more "trippy" so these lenses might give me that dreamy look that could be nice.. I also figured that while these might not be the sharpest lenses ever, on that 2mpx video.. that might do the job.

What do you guys think?