20 Best Lenses For Newborn Photography (2023 Updated)

This is a unique lens and will give you a unique look that no other lens will give you in-camera. Opened to f/1. 6 it will give you an ethereal glow around your subjects and the specular highlights. It’s really at its best when used for portraits or macro photography, especially of plants.

Get a good 3 stop ND filter to go with it. When it’s wide open it will run up your shutter speed in bright light. Stop it down to f/5. 6 and it becomes a nice, sharp lens with a unique bokeh. But if you’re just going to stop it down that far then don’t bother getting it; the lack of autofocus isn’t really worth it.

Get a good 50MM f/1. 4 instead if you’re going to do that. But if you need a portrait lens that will give you a unique look in camera then this is it! Be warned: it’s heavy! Carrying it around for a long distance will be a chore.

If you’re going to do a lot of portraits then get this lens and use it at least once on each shoot. Your clients will like the unique ethereal look. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to change up the shoot and maybe sell that extra print.

You cannot fault WEX service, ordered 10:30am Tuesday, received 2:30pm Wednesday, using the lens by 5pm same day. Maybe I was optomistic but I couldn’t wait to get out with my new Lensbaby Velvet 56mm.

But out I went and had a challeging but fun couple of hours taking night shots with this cool lens. All of the marketing for it shows it used in daylight but it handles night shots well too. Not being able to record the aperture info into exif makes it difficult when coming to process but thats not a major issue and with use I’m sure I shall find my favourite settings and know what’s what.

I’ve added a couple of low angle shots from my time last night and no they are not perfect but with practice who knows. To sum up. A great lens, lovely soft bokeh, easy to handle, and fun.

I am quite please with the quality of build, performance and results from this lens. I would not call it a budget lens but it is indeed far less expensive that the Canon ‘L’ variant. However, this lens could easily be used by a professional who wanted to save some money to afford other gear, like a second body with other lenses.

I find the bokeh quite pleasing and at portrait distances from subject there is plenty of background separation with the DOF from 85mm f/1. 8. Any shallower and the background becomes unrecognizable.

85mm f2 is a sweets spot IMO for portrait work. Offering some macro ability also allows me to get in for tight headshots. I would recommend this to anyone. Pro or amateur alike.

Purchased RF 85 f/2 macro after I had rented both the RF 100 f 2. 8 L macro and RF 85 f/2 macro for one week each , back to back. This Lens is SHARP. I mean SHARP. from wide open at f/2 – 2. 8 & up. Bokeh is SMOOTH and Consistent for both macro and people.

I am just now delving into macro photography after 2 years of Surf and Wildlife photography. For macro I set my Canon R6 to 1. 6 Crop aspect and this yields an 136 mm Equivalent , NO LOSS of Image Quality.

CLEAN and CRISP Images and I have Cropped the Images even Further for Excellent Results , and have some really Nice Mounted 12 x 12 shots this way. This lens with the ET – 77 Lens hood and a 4 Year CARE PAK PLUS Warranty and Hoya NXT Plus UV filter is 1/2 the price of RF 100 2.

8L Lens ALONE. This Lens fits My BUDGET. My NEEDS. My USE. If you are looking for a HIGH QUALITY lens WITHOUT the HIGH PRICE This is the Exact Reason that Canon Designs and Markets the non L Series of lenses.

THANK YOU to Canon , and to B & H for the Affordable Quality Gear.

small in size. BIG in. PERFORMANCE. I rented RF 85 macro to use on my R6 , I enjoyed lens so much I EXTENDED my rental an additional week ! Perfect walk – around lens for People. Places etc. With impressive macro capability as well.

This lens is SUPER SHARP. WAY BEYOND what I would have thought. I set my R6 to 1. 6 crop for macro shots on Bumblebees in fresh flower plot , IMAGES WERE OUTSTANDING , with Really Nice bokeh / background from f 10 to WIDE OPEN f2 apertures.

I then FURTHER CROPPED IMAGES for 8 x 10 prints Where Bumble body was 4. 5 inches in length by 1. 7 inches in width ,, hair on head and back and eyes And markings were SHARP and CLEAN ! ! This was in JPEG.

the Only post editing was a slight Increase in color saturation ,, All shots were HANDHELD I am SUPER. IMPRESSED with this Lens ,, Previous week I rented the RF 100 2. 8 L macro from Lensrentals , and I can Honestly say that for the Price point, I preferred the RF 85 lens.

Thank you to everyone at Lensrentals for the GREAT. SERVICE. GREAT. EXPERIENCE.

I’ve been a professional Photographer for 13 yrs now and I have went through many lenses and nothing beats the 70-200mm. You get that creamy bokeh , and a super sharp subject. It is actually my go to lens when I do weddings and portraits.

I love it !! Nikon has never let me down before !!! Highly recommend if your looking to be a Professional Photographer.

I was skeptical because I’ve been shooting 15 years with consumer gear and actually prefer to shoot between f/8 and f/11. I got the lens used in great condition at a good price so thought I’d treat it as a rental to see if I’ll use it or stick with the 70-300VR.

Though the 70-300VR is great this is definitely a step up and I’m surprised at how much I like shooting at f/2. 8. The only thing is don’t put it on a cheap body – at least get something you can AF-fine tune because you will need to tune your body if you care about sharpness.

On 3 bodies I tuned to -3, -4 and -8. This lens is heavy and it can cause you back or hands to ache. Sharpness is very good even wide open. (I’m told the VRII is even sharper but with a focus breathing trade off).

AF is fast. Ergonomics aren’t bad given the weight. Overall very pleased and unless I find I’m not using it due to weight I will be keeping it. For me this is about as much as I’d pay for a lens – I wouldn’t pay 2-3x as much to buy the VRII brand new.

I’m pleased with my purchase and look forward to putting it to good use.

I was looking for a low cost shift and tilt capable lens for my Panasonic GH5s and have found this to be a more than suitable option. It will take a while for you to master focus and hitting the sweet spot with the lens so you will need to practice with the lens as soon as you get it out of the box.

But it works and it is sharp where you want it to be and soft where you to select it to be so you can’t ask for much more at that price.

I have just about every lensbaby made and the spark is always my true favorite. Love the feel of it on my Nikon Z. The only thing that bothers me is there doesn’t seem to be markings to tell what fstops you are on marked on the lens.

A little hard to see focus, as with all lensbabys. But the build and fun with the lens makes up for it.

I’ve been using this lens for a couple months now and if you’re considering buying it, I advise you not to. It’s really low quality and the novelty effects are easily obtainable in other ways at far lower cost.

When I say it’s poor quality, I mean it; it doesn’t even mount tightly, and wobbles substantially. I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. If you’re interested in swirly bokeh and vintage rendering, I’d advise you instead to get a used Helios 44-2 lens; they were made by the millions and are readily available.

The famed “Helios Swirl” is actually the original anyway. An inexpensive M42 adapter for your choice of camera mount, and you have everything this lens offers at a small fraction of the cost and frankly with higher mechanical and optical quality (except arguably for the coatings, but I question the quality of coatings on this lens anyway).

I was so happy to see this lens for sale in Lensrentas. lt came In Excellent shape, quick shipping and I can’t get over the quality of this used lens. Came in the original box with guide. Can’t wait to get to using it.

I was playing with it for a minute with some Toy Story Friends and a little moss.

I have both the velvet 56 and the burnside 35. I use the 56 for true macro and portraits. I use the 35 for what I call semi-macro where the subject is several feet from the camera to take advantage of the beautiful bokeh and vignetting.

So far, I have not seen much vignett but the bokeh is out of this world. I’m still experimenting but I’m very pleased with effects that this lens produces. Construction and function are solid. Colors are rich, especially using the Velvia film simulation.

Sharpness is good at f5. 6 and above.

This is my first Lensbaby lens and I’m in love! I’ve been into photography my entire life, starting with film in my childhood and switching to digital in 2005. I’ve done portraits, macro and landscapes.

There has just seemed to be a missing piece in my photography. I’ve found it in Lensbaby. The creativity this lens opens up is freeing and inspiring. The way this lens captures light is breathtaking! Wide open this lens creates unique, soft and ethereal images that you can’t get with other lenses or in post processing.

Stop down and this lens is extremely sharp! I only wish I would have discovered Lensbaby sooner in my photographic career. I’m already trying to decide what my Lensbaby lens will be. I’m hooked!.

I love this lens! It has such a soft beautiful effect. It’s not for everyone, but if you like to be creative with your camera and playing with something different is exciting to you, it’s worthy the $.

It’s pretty solid for the price. Feels like a vintage lens. Manual focus at 1. 8 is difficult (of course) and my answer to that is taking a lot of pictures just in case. It’s totally fun, not very expensive and pretty solid.

I wish they’d let me post photos from it, that’s the place where you should make your decision from. Have fun with it!.

The finish is very cheap plastic and the quality is not there When attaching the lens to the composer pro II, the aperture selection ring does not stay in alignment with the graduation markings, you will have to force on the lens crown to align it again.

The same applies to the lock indication markings, which do not match the markings on the Composer Pro II. The focus and focal length is really not obvious even with the use of the focus area illumination (sony a7rII).

Compared to the edge35 model, the finish of the edge 80 and the price-performance ratio is very bad, the use and composition of the image is purely random. Has lensbaby not yet upgraded edge 80 to its composer pro II, certainly it works, but not at this price.

Translated with www. DeepL. com/Translator (free version).

I have been using Lensbaby optics with the Composer Pro for some time. The introduction of the Edge 80 Optic gave me a whole new capability for creative expression. The Optic feels sturdy, well made and yet easy to put in and remove from the Composer Pro.

My goals was to use it for portraits and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. I find that it is easy to set the aperture, adjust the shutter speed and make very minor adjustments in focus around the sweet spot so common in the Lensbaby system.

I also noticed that it takes very little tilting to get a very nice blurred bokeh, much less than with the Sweet 35, for example. As with all Lensbaby optics, this is not the best approach for kids IF they are running around because the time taken to manually focus means you might lose a good shot.

But bribe them to stay still and you will certainly smile at the result.

This lens is great for portraits. The selective focus can guide the viewer to the spot you want in focus which is great when you have your models face in focus and blur out any distracting elements in the background.

A slight tilt can create a background of abstract color that can make your subject pop out in the photo. I am looking forward to using the miniature effect that I have seen others use with this lens.

It’s nice being able to change apertures without having to remove an aperture disk.

Having recently received the Composer Pro II with Sweet 50 Optic, I have only used it in a production situation once, and that was a low-light fast-moving event. Manually focusing in low light on moving bodies would be challenging with any lens, and of course the Lensbaby tilt system adds another dimension for the operator.

Obviously, these are specialty, special effects lenses, and they’re not intended for action photography, but I did manage to get several pretty cool shots with the Lensbaby (on my Sony a6500), which I look forward to working on in Lightroom.

(I won’t post them here because I don’t have permission from the subjects. ) I find the construction of the Composer II to be solid, the controls seem well-calibrated (and will take some practice to get muscle memory), and I love the look of the Sweet 50.

I hope to get more optics; probably a Lensbaby Edge 35mm next, for a normal field of view on APS-C/Super35, and wide on full frame. I like that the optics can be purchased separately for relatively low cost when compared to the price of a whole new lens.

I think I’ll have fun with this system.

I own a decent amount of lenses and I use multiple focal lengths (16mm and 200mm) to achieve different results and looks in my pictures. I liked the idea of Lensbaby and it provides a different rendering/look for sure! The selling point for me was the price point to try and experiment with something out side the box.

I bought the composer pro 2 with the sweet 50 optic. It gives you a central small circle of sharp focus and surrounds it with a radial blur. The build quality is a mix of metal and plastic, not super tough but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to fall apart either.

This is a manual focus lens, which didn’t scare me because I already own and use several manual focus lenses include Zeiss. After messing with it for only 30-60 mins I was not sure about it and didn’t know if I liked it.

I was not getting a lot of keepers. But I stuck with it and within a couple hours of messing with it, I figured out a couple of key things that makes it work great! You can’t really tilt the composer pro 2 all the way to the edges, it will not get sharp really (shifted too far) the light meter in the camera gets tricked a little when you start bending the lens and you might need to adjust exposure.

After a very short time I started to see what kind of cool abstract and fun things you can shoot with this lens and the effect it gives you! It’s a lot of fun! I have shot a ton of pics with it and wow there’s some awesome things you can go with it! It’s really great at isolated your subject! And it gives almost all of its images a motion feel to them like they are moving! If you are ok with manual focus or are willing to practice doing it, this lens provides a very unique look and feel to your pictures!.

I had been looking at this lens for a good while and debating on whether or not to purchase it when B&H put it on sale. Actually, I had just purchased, but not received the Sol 45, and contacted B&H to cancel that purchase and replace it with the Composer II/Sweet 50 Optic.

B&H was great to work with and made the switch without hesitation. As for the lens itself, let me say that it provides the opportunity to achieve effects that cannot be easily replicated in post-production.

It really enables one’s creativity to surface as well. I’ve read reviews that say it’s hard to focus. That’s not something I’ve experienced, I guess in part because I’m used to manually focusing in macro work.

To me, focus is quite easy when stopped down to f/5. 6 or lower, while it can be challenging when the lens is fully opened. I’ve found that focusing at f/8 and then opening up to wider apertures works well.

The build quality of the lens is great. It is solid. I’m very glad I purchased it!.

This camera is small feels cheap and not user friendly. I have Been taking pictures over 35 years with canon products starting with the canon AE-1 35mm. The lenses are super small and not interchangeable with the EOS canons.

This is how canon makes their money. Buy a mirrorless and you need to buy all specialty lenses too. QVC should eliminate these small toy cameras. The EOS t series are so much better. I’ve had the 35 mm EOS t5 and t3.

All quality cameras like the AE-1. I’ll have to read the manual on how to use. Ridiculous price for this toy camera. Once I use It if I don’t rerun it I’ll leave another review.

Pros: Tried to do several pictures, it works as described. Lightweight and easy to use. Good value for money, much cheaper than an adaptor ring and lenses for higher Canon models for my M6 camera. Cons: The only concern is plastic body.

Not sure if once it does not start generate plastic dust during changing lenses.

My wife and I will meet my borther and his wife in Jackson Hole in about three weeks for a vacation of fun, laughs, food, wine and a Great Environment. We are staying at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park – one of my favorite places.

On the first full day, we are all taking a private tour of Yellowstone. My five and I did this once before but for my brother and sister in law, this will be their first. If you have read this far, this trim is the reason for the EF-M 55-200mm.

I travel without encumbrance of family to wild and scenic places on landscape photo workshops. On those trips, I shoot an EOS 5D MKIII with big, heavy L lenses. And I use good Induro tripods. I also use the 5D for shooting Friday night highschool football for our local weekly newspaper with my 70-200.

So far the EF-M 55-200 (the a crop factor multiplier equal to full frame 88-320) has been a joy to use. It is primarily constructed on the exterior of carbon fiber. The lens mount is carbon fiber. Some may not think that is a good construction but this compact lens feels tight and exudes quality.

The zoom is a twist ring pumper that feels precise and holds in intermediate places. The image stabilization is amazing. It gives a 3. 5 to 4 stop hand holding ability that can be switched off in the software for tripod shooting.

It’s has a slow variable maximum aperture but seems very sharp with great color contrast. This little lens has produced excellent image quality on my first generation M. Focus with the STM drive is quick and accurate.

There is no hunting. It snaps into focus or just can’t focus due to low light. The original M is maligned for its focus properties, but with this lens and the great EF-M 22mm, I find focus properties OK and any fault is not the fault of the EF-M 55-200.

Lastly, the size of this lens is just ridiculous for its performance. It’s small and light. I hope to shoot some of the animals about the Tetons.

I bought this lens for landscape, street, and interior photography. I also own the RF 15-35/2. 8 which has been a disappointment. I hoped that a prime lens would perform better. This is NOT the case.

The RF 16mm can only be used with the lens corrections enabled in LR. That wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that only about 2/3 or 1/2 of the image was sharp. The center of the image is sharp, no problems with that.

The point is that you have to cut away a big part of the image to get reasonable sharpness for any landscape or architectural photography. If I cut away the part that is totally blurred/unsharp, I’m left with less than half of the resolution my R5 offers.

In addition to being blurred along the edges to a degree I never saw in a lens before (not even the old 20-35/2. 8 Nikon lens I once owned), the Canon RF 16mm features chromatic aberrations to a degree that I never saw before.

The aberrations are hard to fix, and the normal automatic aberration feature in LR is just not doing the job. On top of all that, the lens profile cuts away a substantial part of the image. How do I know? Just use the Aspect slider in the Transform section of Adobe Lightroom Classic.

You will discover that you can actually get a much wider view if you pull the slider to the right. Where do all the extra pixels come from? In other words, Canon is truncating a lot of the 45MP image to start with.

Yet, even with truncating so much from the sides of the image, the remaining photo still needs to be cropped to get something useable. So if you think it is smart to throw away away a few hundred dollars to get an image that is sharp only in the 24-35mm crop at a much reduced resolution, go ahead.

This lens is indeed quite sharp at the center, but only there. I gave it 2 stars because of the center sharpness. Perhaps that lens works for you. Next time I’d be renting it before purchase.

Arrived yesterday, day after purchased – due to excellent WEX service. Had a trial run and already finding great potential for this fab little lens. The key feature of it being creativity not necessarily the sharpest image quality.

You may take a little time to get used to focussing a manual lens especially when the focus point is off centre but by using peaking (Fuji XT-3) helped considerably. Using a still object would also be beneficial! I’ve been photographing seriously for over 30 years and despite having purchased some extremely expensive equipment I feel this well built yet very reasonably priced lens is going to give me much enjoyment.

I generally use fixed focal length lenses and the 45mm length of this is easier than many lengths as it only slightly zoomed in from an average field of vision. However it will naturally challenge thinking more as to what is important in an image and I love a challenge! I’ve never done a review before but I felt this lens deserved one.

It took me a while to get it working. On the Samsung NX1000 it only works with aperture priority mode and I blindly had it left on SMART when first trialing it (or reading the very thin generalized instructions).

If in any other mode the camera complains the lens is not detected. In aperture priority mode it skips the check. I’m mostly stating the above to make it clear it works to other NX1000 owners. Works great now that I got that sorted!.

I already own the Lensbaby Composer Pro with Sweet 35 and Edge 80 Optics. It took some practice and getting used to; but once I did, I had a lot of fun with these lenses and took some great portraits with them.

I was excited to hear about the Sweet 50, as it’s a great portrait focal length, especially for those with APS-C cameras like I have, so added it to my collection. Remember, this lens is completely manual, so you may need to dial-in the focal length and aperture into your camera’s menu settings so they they are recorded in the resulting file’s metadata; and/or carefully watch the manual focus and exposure cues in your viewfinder/LCD display.

The key is to slow down. But get those right, and the results are some lovely, narrow sweet spot focus (depth of field) with deliciously smooth bokeh falling away from it. It’s not in the same league as the far more expensive prime lenses out there: there are some amazing pieces of glass that can do this too.

But tilt the Lensbaby lens around and things really get fun, with different areas/planes of focus with some diorama effects.

Not used it much yet but wanted to add to my collection of Lensbaby lenses. I’ve got the Sweet 35 but I thought a longer focal length would add to creative possibilities for flower photography. I think if I was starting over I would buy this lens first rather than the Sweet 35.

IšverstiShow in original languageDas Nikon AF-S Micro-Nikkor DX 40mm f/2. 8 G ist ein Makroobjektiv, dass sich gerade wegen seines Preises gut für Einsteiger eignet. Trotzdem muss man dafür kaum Kompromisse in Kauf nehmen.

Die Verarbeitung geht für ein Objektiv dieser Preisklasse in Ordnung. Trotz des großen Kunststoffanteils ist das Gehäuse ansonsten außergewöhnlich gut ausgestattet. So besitzt es neben einer Fokusskala und einem einfachen Focuslimiter auch durch eine Gummilippe um den Mount eine gewisse Abdichtung gegen Spritzwasser.

Der Fokusring läuft gleichmäßig und hat einen relativ langen Weg (ca. eine halbe Drehung für den gesamten Schärfebereich), was ein präzises Arbeiten mit der Schärfe erleichtert – gerade für ein Makro ist das wichtig.

Außerdem verfügt das Objektiv über die Möglichkeit des Full Time Manual Override: Um in den Fokussiervorgang einzugreifen, muss man den Schalter nicht auf MF stellen. Der Widerstand des Rings ist für meinen Geschmack zwar etwas zu groß, aber keinesfalls störend.

Ein Nachteil ist jedoch, dass das Objektiv Richtung Naheinstellgrenze nach vorne ausfährt, was gerade kleine Tiere wie Eidechsen unter Umständen vertreiben kann. Immerhin dreht sich das Linsenelement nicht, was die Verwendung von Filtern vereinfacht.

Wie bei einem echten Makro üblich, sinkt die effektive Lichtstärke im Nahbereich ab. An der Naheinstellgrenze verbleibt eine effektive Blende von f/4. 2. Konstruktionsbedingt liegt die Schärfeebene dann nur wenige Millimeter von dem Frontelement entfernt – ich bevorzuge das, weil die kurze Brennweite die Verwacklungsgefahr reduziert.

Durch die kompakte Bauweise des Objektivs besteht auch nicht unbedingt die Gefahr einer Abschattung, auf die Gegenlichtblende verzichte dann aber meist. Wer lieber auf längere Distanzen arbeiten will oder muss, sollte sich jedoch nach einem Objektiv mit einer größeren Brennweite umsehen.

Der Autofokus des Objektivs ist zwar deutlich hörbar, dafür aber erfreulich flink und zuverlässig. Sofern mein Motiv für den AF einfach zu erfassen ist und mein Motiv nicht allzu schreckhaft, verwende ich ihn gerne.

Die Abbildungsleistung ist ausgezeichnet. Trotz einer hohen Schärfe werden unscharfe Bildbereiche harmonisch wiedergegeben. Die Schärfeleistung des Objektivs kann sogar der enormen Pixeldichte einer Nikon 1 J5 (an welche das Objektiv mit dem FT1-Adapter angebracht werden kann) standhalten.

An den Nikon 1-Kameras profitiert man darüber hinaus durch den Crop-Faktor von einem enormen effektiven Abbildungsmaßstab. Hier sieht man dann in bestimmten Situationen aber die ansonsten gut korrigierten chromatischen Aberrationen etwas deutlicher.

An einer Spiegelreflexkamera ist die Bildqualität jedoch tadellos. Gerade in dem Preissegment ist mir kein Objektiv mit einer besseren Abbildungsleistung bekannt. Zum Lieferumfang gehört neben dem Objektiv noch die Gegenlichtblende und ein kleiner Beutel.

Das Objektiv ist wirklich ein Preis/Leistungskracher und ist quasi konkurrenzlos. Allenfalls das Tamron 60mm f/2 käme noch in Betracht. Es ist sogar eine ganze Blende heller als das Nikon und daher auch für Portraits besonders geeignet, kostet jedoch auch etwa 70€ mehr und hat vor allem nur einen sehr langsamen und unzuverlässigen Autofokus.

Das bessere Gesamtpaket ist daher für die meisten Fotografen bestimmt das Nikon, was ich nur empfehlen kann.

IšverstiShow in original languageThis lens is one of the best purchases I have made considering the price. It is versatile Can be used as a standard portrait lens and the quality of the glass itself is great.

The first day I took it out to the local park, photos looked decent on the LCD, but went home and transferred them on the computer and WOW I was stunned I ended up starring at one of the pictures for a full minute amazed at how it turned out I am an amateur photographer.

I would recommend this lens for anyone who would like to take macro photos and would like to save some money. I would recommend a tripod for nature photography but this lens does allow for some fast shutter speeds.

Only drawback is having to get inches close to the subject I have gotten some weird looks to get a good shot AND this lens attract more dust for some reason maybe since you have to go so close than my other lens.

Have to clean it constantly.