Soft dreamy lensbaby blur

Soft, romantic, ethereal and dreamy are words which are often associated with my style of photography.  For a few years I relied entirely on photoshop or lightroom to give that look but nowadays I have a kit bag that virtually does most of it straight out of the camera.

This week I've been solely using the lensbaby single glass optic which gives a softer focus along with a combination of  aperture rings f2.8 or the f4, two macro filters and a wide angle optic.  Rather than confuse you with just 'lensbaby jargon' I'll let you see the pieces of kit and how they are attached to the camera body.  

As I mentioned in my first creative post when you first buy a lensbaby the one thing you have to realise is that it doesn't 'talk' to your camera body.  You have to decide on all the camera settings yourself.  As there is no such thing as auto focus  you have to rely on your own eyesight.   

The first thing you need to do to your camera before you even put the lensbaby on the camera is make sure that your diopter is correctly callibrated  to match your own vision.  Even if you're not using a lensbaby this is very important if you have to manually focus sometimes as it means you'll get a far sharper image.  You don't need to do this very often..........unless your eyesight starts to deteriorate or you change contact lenses.

• I attach the lensbaby composer pro to the camera body just the way any other lens attaches to a dslr camera body.  When you buy one of these there will be a glass optic already in the composer pro.  For today I've taken it out so that you can see how I change from one optic to another.

lensbaby composer pro

• Then I add the pieces of kit below.

How to Make Creative Lensbaby Flower Images

Following on from last week's lensbaby creativity I wanted to share some flower photographs with you using various parts of the optics system.  Abstract and macro go hand in hand but add a lensbaby optic and you'll gain a whole new dimension to your photography.  Flower photography is what I specialise in so you can just imagine that the lensbaby is rarely off my camera body.  I still like some degree of sharpness in most of the images and usually I'll use the double glass and the aperture rings f4 and f5.6.  I'll also use the +4 and +10 macro filters stacked on top of each other.................and sometimes there are barrels of kenko extension tubes in the stack too!  ....and there could even be a wide angle optic stacked on the very top! phew that's quite a package!

If you use the lensbaby on your full frame camera the focal length will be 50mm but if you use it on an APS sensor dslr then your images will be 75mm.  All the images below were taken handheld using an APS sensor dslr with no cropping.  You don't want to crop your images if possible as you're cropping away all that gorgeous blur - so getting your composition right in the frame is paramount from the outset.

Using Extension Tubes 

crocus | double glass, f5.6 plus +4 and +10 macro filters + 3 barrels of kenko extension tubes.

Lensbaby Creativity

Hello everyone!  

The last time I popped into your inbox or rss reader  I told you that my photography was going to take a new direction.  Well after 4 months of a blogging hiatus here at the studio I'm about to tell you what happened.  All isn't what you'd expect.   If you had read my last post ND filters for long exposure photography  were on my shopping list.  They still are!..........though a bit further down now.  Some of you follow me on facebook or google + so you'll already know what happened but for everyone else I'd better let you see for yourself.............

yellow theme: Ranunculus bud 

What direction is your photography taking you this year?

What direction is your photography taking you in 2013? I don't want to take just any picture I want to capture a mood.  I want to evoke an emotion and I want to create something that's atmospheric.  This year I'm starting to learn how to take long exposures with ND filters.  Use more black and white photography for fine art abstracts in nature and learn the skills involved in dslr astro photography post editing. 

When it comes to black and white photography these days I just don't pick a black and white action in photoshop or choose a preset in Topaz BW effects.  I also

Colorme Weekly Palette Finale

It's a finale today but also a ground breaking post for the leavesnbloom website which is really exciting. Yes you did read that right - today is the final ColorMe Weekly  but just here at the studio. I've had a great year creating colour palettes and curating the meme and I hope you have too. 

I want to thank each and everyone of you for joining in and making it such great fun at the start of every new week.

New E Commerce Site

New ventures are planned for 2013 here at the studio blog and I'm sure you'll have already noticed that the leavesnbloom studio has been given a makeover.   It's now fully integrated into my brand new e commerce site leavesnbloom fine art & photography.   

The amalgamation of all 3 of my sites into the leavesnbloom.com domain now makes it possible for me to share private galleries with clients and let them purchase direct from the gallery, sell my bucolic Perthshire fine art prints and licence my stock images directly with corporate clients along with blogging. 

The stock image library is still under construction if you've been over already. I'm planning for over 1,000 images to get uploaded there.....that's over 1,000 sets of keywords I'm working on for starters!   Here are the latest ones - and each one individually can be embedded on your own website as you can see here.  The stock images are unedited and unsharpened and rarely cropped as corporate clients need as many pixels as possible.

ColorMe Weekly is moving house!

 In 2013 ColorMe Weekly is changing and  moving in a new direction.......