Lensbaby: Perfect partner for flower photography

My first impressions of the Lensbaby Velvet 56.

If you wanted to pick the perfect partner for flower photography, it would be hard to beat a Lensbaby.

“What the heck is a Lensbaby,?” you may ask.

Think a specialized lens (system) that is almost designed specifically to photograph flowers. And, not just your typical flower photography, Lensbaby is all about encouraging photographers to take a creative approach to flower and garden photography using built-in, selective-focus techniques.

Suffice it to say that Lensbaby offers a selection of different lenses for most of the major camera brands that uses various “selective-focus” techniques giving photographers incredible opportunities to expand their creative approach to flower photography. Although the lenses are not limited to flower or garden images – they also excel at portrait and landscape photography – there is no question that garden and flower photography is certainly their sweet spot.

A creative approach

The selective-focus approach can be subtle or extreme depending on the F-stop you select. Using a high f-stop like f5.6, f8 or f11 with the Velvet lenses creates a very subtle effect that is almost unnoticeable as you reach f8-f11, but the velvet look becomes much more obvious at f4 through f2.

In the company’s own words: “Lensbaby revolutionized creative photography forever with our unique award-winning creative-effect camera lenses. Known for their distinctive in-camera effects, our lenses and optics allow photographers to highlight specific areas of an image while creating effects that can't be mimicked.”

This post is going to focus on my first impressions of the Lensbaby Velvet 56 after taking it to the local public garden greenhouse and putting it to use for a couple of hours one afternoon in the cold of winter.

Lensbaby lenses have been around in different forms since 2004, but they have taken giant steps in just the past few years with the introduction of their Velvet series of lenses – the 28mm, the 56mm and the 85mm.

The three Lensbaby Velvet lenses pictured here from the wide angle 28mm to the 85mm telephoto lens, with the 56 mm sitting right in the middle sweet spot.

Check out Amazon for the complete listing of Lensbaby lenses and accessories, including a book about using the various Lensbaby products.

Lensbaby describes the effect as: “The Velvet effect is … designed to produce images with a uniquely soft and velvety appearance, reminiscent of classic portrait lenses from the past. They combine a sharp central focus with a smooth, ethereal glow in the out-of-focus areas, resulting in images that exude a romantic and timeless quality. The Velvet effect is particularly well-suited for portraits, still life, and any subject where a touch of artistic flair is desired. It adds a sense of depth and emotion to the image, enhancing its storytelling potential and evoking a sense of nostalgia. With its distinctive rendering and dreamy aesthetic, the Velvet effect allows photographers to create images that are both visually stunning and emotionally compelling.”

Okay, no mention of flower and garden photography, – a real miss on their part – but trust me, you will love the results.

So here are just a few more images made with the Velvet56 in just a few short hours in the greenhouse. All the images were made, handheld with an Olympus EM10 digital camera.

Although shooting handheld is a lot easier and fun than lugging around a tripod, I prefer to use a tripod if possible to ensure accurate focus and to force me to slow down and fully explore the possibilities each flower offers.

Lensbaby lenses are all manual-focus and can be difficult to get pin-point focussing accuracy at times because of their inherent soft-focus attributes. Focusing the lenses closed down (at f8 for example) and then opening them up to f5.6 -f2.8 prior to capturing the image is always a good idea. I find using a focusing aid such as a hoodman (amazon link) on the back of the camera’s focusing screen can go a long way to ensuring proper focus.

Learning to use the Velvet line of lenses is not difficult. Besides having to manually focus the lenses like vintage manual focus lenses, and setting the f-stop manually, the lenses simply mount on your camera and are ready to use. In most cases it is best to set your camera to use aperture priority. This way you can let the camera choose the ISO setting and the shutter speed to get proper exposure.

In conclusion, I recommend anyone who is serious about flower or garden photography to seriously consider adding one of the many Lensbaby lenses to their camera bag. The lenses are often available at very good prices on places like Facebook marketplace, e-bay or other on-line locations.

You can also check out camera outlets such as KEH, BH cameras and Henry’s cameras.

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