How to Make Your Own Lensbaby Lens Blur Effects
The Lensbaby is a flexible lens that can be twisted and bent to produce selective focus. The effect, for example, can make a rose on one side of the image frame appear in sharp focus while the other roses on the other side of the frame can blur to a soft background image. Using your fingers, you can make the Lensbaby go in and out of focus at nearly any point around the frame, while the other part creates the opposite effect.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Single-lens reflex camera
- Petroleum jelly
- Translucent scarves
- Transparent scarves
- Computer
- Photo editing software
Instructions
-
-
1
Select your subject, whether it is a person, a rose or something else. Take a look at the various angles at which you can shoot the person or the object. Determine your basic composition and decide what part of the image you would like to blur.
-
2
Set your camera up on a tripod with whichever type of lens you choose. You can use a standard or normal lens of 50mm or, to add to the Lensbaby effect, you can use a short telephoto or portrait lens of 75mm or 80mm. The longer the telephoto lens, the shorter the range of items or people will be in focus.
-
-
3
Look through the viewfinder and place one of the scarves over part of the lens. This will give you a soft, diffused portion of the image while leaving the other part in focus. Do not worry about the line where the scarf ends. If you place it directly on the front of the lens, the sharpness of that edge will appear minimally. You can fix it in a photo editing software package if it becomes too distracting.
-
4
Use petroleum jelly on the front of the lens to get a soft, blurred effect. Bob Guccione became famous for this technique. However, it is a better idea to have a skylight or ultraviolet filter to protect the actual front element of the lens from the petroleum jelly. It is easier to clean a filter than a lens, and if you cannot get it completely off, it is less expensive to replace a filter than a lens.
-
5
Work with the image in the photo editing software to enhance the Lensbaby effect. In fact, you can achieve the Lensbaby effect entirely in photo editing software without the use of a lens. You actually will have more control over the image there. If you have shot effects with scarves or petroleum jelly, however, you can smooth out the image and hone the effect better in the software.
-
1
References
- Photo Credit slr on a tripod image by Aussiebloke from Fotolia.com
