[teedee]

Hi, i want to buy a lensbaby for my pentax k200d,
im a bit confused about the different lens bodies out there.
i have been looking around in the lensbaby.com site and i guess its one of these three i need:

1.muse
2.composer
3.controll freak

i would be happy if i can get some input / advice about which one to choose.
Are they all fairly easy to use?
is there any one of these that stands out as a MUST HAVE? or a one that i should stay clear of?

the gallery over at lensbaby.com only show information about the optic,
and not what lenses are being used to take the pictures, are the result very different on these three lenses?

im also interested in buying second-hand if someone here got a used one they want to sell cheap.
(i cant see any for sale in the marketplace)

thanks for any reply!

[patolds]

Hi, i want to buy a lensbaby for my pentax k200d,
im a bit confused about the different lens bodies out there.
i have been looking around in the lensbaby.com site and i guess its one of these three i need:

1.muse
2.composer
3.controll freak

i would be happy if i can get some input / advice about which one to choose.
Are they all fairly easy to use?
is there any one of these that stands out as a MUST HAVE? or a one that i should stay clear of?

the gallery over at lensbaby.com only show information about the optic,
and not what lenses are being used to take the pictures, are the result very different on these three lenses?

im also interested in buying second-hand if someone here got a used one they want to sell cheap.
(i cant see any for sale in the marketplace)

thanks for any reply!

Gudday mate from the land of Oz!

Don't have one meself, but just participated in a Forum challenge last month where one of the blokes used one...an' there's 30 days worth of shots to look at! I was impressed!

Go to members photo albums, search for "Single in September", then check out Duh Vinci's stuff. Once there you can contact him via personal mail and he may help!

Cheers Paddy.

[teedee]

thanks for reply patolds, i just tryed your suggestion
3 pages comes up on that search, but i cant see any photos by Duh Vinci.
Thanks anyway.... i guess i just buy the 1.muse. its cheap and gives me something to play with.

[sajah]

I don't have a lensbaby lens but once I was considering to buy it so I've done some readings. From my understanding, the difference between the three is the easiness of bending, pushing and pulling the construct to get the effect you want, and how precise they are.

The muse is the easiest one you can just pull, push and bend with your finger. But it is also the less precise one. It's often hard to get exact the same effect twice.

With the control freak, as the name implies, you can control the amount of pull / push and bend very precisely and if you remember them you can always reproduce it later on. However, it takes more time and more tedious to set anything. But I'm guessing the usefulness of the precision surpasses the slightly more tedious way. Then again it's also more expensive.

The composer is somewhere between the two.

Note that I never seen any of them with my own eyes so I could be wrong. Hopefully someone who actually owns one would jump in soon.

[brofkand]

I own the Muse with plastic optic. For a toy, it's good enough.

If I were to develop a style with the Lensbaby, I'd probably go with the Composer with plastic or double glass optic.

The Muse is just a lens mount and a lens with bellows in between. It's very easy to adjust focus, but very difficult to reproduce the effect from shot-to-shot (or in a long exposure).

The Composer is a ball-and-socket instead of bellows, with a focus ring around the lens. It is great for reproducibility and long exposures, but much more expensive. Same goes with the Control Freak.

My favorite part of the Lensbaby is the aperture kit. You can cut your own apertures and have specular highlights that take the shape of stars, hearts, unicorns, whatever. It's really fun.

[patolds]

thanks for reply patolds, i just tryed your suggestion
3 pages comes up on that search, but i cant see any photos by Duh Vinci.
Thanks anyway.... i guess i just buy the 1.muse. its cheap and gives me something to play with.

Hmm strange! Just checked it out and his stuff is there Duh Vinci on I think the second page. Double click the album photo and you should see them!

Cheers Paddy

[RioRico]

If you gargle a bit you'll find plans for making your own Muse-type lensbaby clone (CHEAP!) using an enlarger lens and a rubber plumbing fitting, IIRC. And isn't there a Lensbaby Club here? And a Tilt-Shift Club? Just search these forums for LENSBABY and you'll probably be overwhelmed. Good luck!

[unixrevolution]

The lensbaby muse with single glass optic is very similar to my Lensbaby 2.0. I adore using mine. The thing to keep in mind about the Muse is that you can NOT take hands-off shots with this lens. You need to be holding the camera. With the other two, you can set it up for a tripod or other non-handheld shot.

The Muse is very easy to use. You simply pull back on the front of the lens to focus (closer to the camera = infinity, pushing gently away from the camera gets you shorter distances) and wiggle it back, forth, up and down to move the "sweet spot" on the frame.

As with all lensbabies, aperture is changed with different aperture discs that you swap in and out. All metering is Av or Manual.

So it really depends on what you want to do with it. handheld, quick shooting? Muse. Very, VERY carefully composed tripod shots? Control freak. Somewhere in between? Composer.

[apac]

Since this thread is discussing lensbaby lenses.... I wanted to ask... How about the Lensbaby Scout? I have been researching fisheye lenses and came across it. The website specs out a minimum focus distance of 0.5 inch. Any thoughts on this lens? Here is the direct link to the lensbaby website: Lensbaby - Scout

[Tomzee93]

I own the Composer and it's a really good combination of speed and control. You just tilt it in the socket to adjust your sweet spot, and twist a focus ring just like any other lens. Once you tilt it in the direction you want, you don't need to hold it in that position, letting you focus more on. . . well, focusing! Plus, since it can be difficult to accurately focus with a lensbaby anyway, the Composer allows me to take 3-4 image bursts while minutely adjusting the focus in each shot to help guarantee the sharpest focus.

[teedee]

Thank you all for taking the time to give me your thoughts about this.
I think i go for the Composer after reading this thread, thanks again!
@ apac, i dont know anything about the Scout either, maby someone comes in and offer some thoughts about that one as well.

[bokehbetty]

Coming from a new person! (and Lensbaby owner)


Hi there teeDee - did you end up getting the Lensbaby that you wanted?

I have everything for the Composer except the Scout, and Fish Eye.

I just sold my original Lensbaby and I miss it, even though I NEVER used it! lol -

Which optics did ya get?

did you get any of the Macro or telephoto converters? How bout wide angle? How bout creative aperature disks? Did you make your own?


Also, did you look at the photos on their website? They have THOUSANDS of images there showing HOW they got the shot (meanin, which opitc/which lensbaby/ and if it were with macro or telephoto or both or all 5!!

Also, Kristin at Lensbaby is one of the most helpful people ever. If you ever get stuck on something, she is there.

They are out of Colorado and supposedly are very supportive of the photographic community in general.

frankly, their stuff is WAY over priced - and the pain that is used on the macro lenses, the wide angel lenses, and telephoto etc. wears off, or rubs off easily. I RARELY use my stuff and simply by using them, the paint appears that maybe its not the best?

Anywho - see ya later!
(do you have a link to your sampled images from your LB?)


See ya later!


Kim