I am so excited to share the announcement of a new Lensbaby, the Composer Pro II with Sweet 80 Optic! This new 80mm optic is the third in the Sweet series of tilting selective focus optics, joining the Sweet 35 and Sweet 50 optics with a sweet spot of sharp focus surrounded by beautiful blur. With apertures from f/2.8-16 and a minimum focus distance of 22 inches, the Sweet 80 will be available either with the Composer Pro 2 or as an interchangeable optic for any of the previous optic swap system lenses.
Selective focus is my favorite way to make photos, I love to create a small area in focus and blur the rest of the image, drawing the viewer’s attention to just one part of my subject. The first thing I noticed while shooting with this optic was the wonderful fall off to blur created by the compression of the longer focal length. The blending of colors and shapes is beautiful!
Here are some photos I made this weekend with the Sweet 80, the 80mm focal length of the optic is awesome! The weather was very foggy in my area, with lovely diffused light. My son caught a blue lobster last week (one-in-two-million odds!), so I photographed that as well as flowers. I used f/4.
When you want to get closer with the Sweet 80, you pull out the front of the Optic. This close-focus feature allows you to focus from 22″ from the front of the lens to your subject.
Be sure to push that close focus element back in when you want to focus at a longer distance away. Here are some examples with and without using the closer focus feature, all at the minimum focus distance of the optic:
I also tried adding a +2 macro diopter to get even closer to my subjects:
And since I love to shoot wide open with my Lensbabies, I shot some at f/2.8 for max blur too!
Happy Shooting!
-Kathleen Clemons
Kathleen Teaches:
Fine Art Nature Photography II
