I bought the Lensbaby Velvet 56mm 1.6 soft focus lens last spring on a lark. I've been smitten with the vintage, soft focus look from folks like Vivienne Mok and others and thought it'd be fun to have this piece of glass in my kit. The lens is really pretty nice, but I've never really warmed to it. It's so soft at wide apertures that it's really hard to even tell where the focus point is. I wouldn't say it's gone from dreamy to nightmare, but it hasn't gotten the use I'd hoped.

Anyway, I shot with a super cool person, Trinity, earlier this week. She was specifically interested in a softer, more feminine look than in some of her other shoots. Figured I'd give the Velvet another go.

This time I really liked the results. There's a tendency to want to get super close with the lens but stepping back a bit worked much better (for me).

Anyway, here are a few I did a quick edit on yesterday. I used the Mastin Labs presets, Fuji Pro 400H for the color, Ilford Delta 3200 for the b&w. all All were shot either at f2.8 or 2.0 (1.6 is just ridiculous).

K-1, Lensbaby Velvet 56mm 1.6

[eaglem]

That lens certainly creates some very interesting effects!