The Little Lens That Could

The Lensbaby, an ingenious optic that brings view-camera style selective focus effects to digital, 35mm, and medium-format photography, just keeps on rockin'. The new movie-camera version of the lens, which we've covered in this space before, has been used by director Eric Schmidt to shoot a new music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Girls in Their Summer Clothes." Watch it (below) and you may long for something sharp!
--Russell Hart

Comments

[Keith Nolan]

What a piece of pretentious rubbish. I can achieve exactly the same with my camera phone!

[Russell Hart]

Well, not exactly the same, but maybe just as unsharp. As for the pretentious rubbish, do you mean the video or the Lensbaby itself?

[Keith Nolan]

The Boss is still the Boss...as for the Lensbaby and video!?

[Russell Hart]

I agree with you about the video, but I think the Lensbaby is a clever and artistically useful tool. Like many things in photography, though, it has become faddish and therefore overused (and often used badly). I do think the way it's used in the Bauby Wakes Up scene in The Butterfly and the Diving Bell is actually quite appropriate and considered. Do you like the effect there? What do you think of the effect that probably inspired Lensbabies--the "wrong" use of view camera movements to produce highly selective sharpness?

[Russell Hart]

Oops--I meant the Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

[jmgiordano]

or you could just use the blur tool...