Lensbaby’s New Twist 60

A couple weeks ago Lensbaby announced a new lens and optic, the Twist 60! The lens is a 60mm f/2.5 model for full frame SLR and Mirrorless cameras, and there is also an optic version that works with the Lensbaby interchangeable Optic Swap™ System. The Twist 60 produces a large sweet spot of focus, with swirly blur and a slight vignette around the edges of the frame to isolate a subject from the background.

It’s been raining since my Twist 60 arrived, but this morning was clear and sunny, I couldn’t wait to try out the optic. Because this optic works best kept straight ahead, no bending, I put it in an old Lensbaby Scout lens which doesn’t bend, and headed out early this morning to see what I could find to shoot. (You could use the Composer/Composer Pro and just lock the lens in a centered position.)  Spring is taking it’s time coming to Maine, so I tucked a  “stunt feather” in my pocket to play with just in case I couldn’t find much to shoot, as well as a macro diopter so that I could try shooting closer too. I put the optic on f/2.5 for all shots for max blur.

Here are the first images I made:

Right away I could see the wonderful swirly blur and slight vignette around the edges, and how it made my subjects pop right off the background. I also found that my most successful shots were those that included plenty of well lit background area that was a good distance away from my subject, that separation was key.

I also wanted to see what would happen when a subject was pretty much all on the same focal plane, and was happy that the swirly blur was still visible with these frosted leaves:

I found a lone Bamboo leaf that had survived the winter intact:

I also made some photos with my stunt feather:

I tried my macro diopter too, but mostly I found I preferred the images that included more background to really see all that delicious swirly blur: