Lensbaby Spark
For my birthday this year, I was lucky enough to get a Lensbaby Spark, which I immediately took out for a play. The Lensbaby range is a series of lenses which primarily enable selective focus (more expensive models allow for swapping of optics and apertures, but the Lensbaby Spark doesn't have this functionality).
Usage
Image from Lensbaby site
The Spark differs from standard lenses in that the lens is essentially a rubber bellows. To focus, you squeeze the front inward to the camera, which will shift the 'sweet spot' of focus. This is the first important point about the Spark; you intentionally have a limited depth of field and focus will be limited to this single region. This sweet spot can then be pointed at different regions by pulling on different edges of the Spark. The selective focus effect is unlike anything you'd get from a standard lens, and has especially found popularity online for the ability to make things appear like a toy town (whereby real cities seem like models).
First trials in Bournemouth
Despite the near freezing temperatures, we decided to brave Bournemouth beach, which seemed a great opportunity to try out the Spark. Initial playing with the Spark quickly revealed how tricky it can be to find the focal point; the constant squeezing and tweaking needed meant I felt like I was chasing the spot around the viewfinder. Coming from an auto focus background, this was quite an adjustment to make!
I quickly found that stationary objects where best suited for the lens, since you had time to compose the shot and think about where the focal point should be. Portraits worked to some extent, but trying to photography my toddler son was nigh on impossible given his inability to stay still for more than a few seconds.
Toy town
Not everything was suited to the Toy Town effect; the shot above was probably my most successful. However, I've also never managed to take a photo of the beach huts that I've been happy with until now, so this is certainly an improvement on that front!
Summary
The Lensbaby Spark is a fun lens that offers a genuine alternative to normal sharp lenses. It can be fiddly to use and the results mixed, but it does make you think about what you're trying to achieve more, which as a photographer is a good step to include (and one that is overlooked a lot in the digital realm where thousands of photos can be taken and tweaked).
The effect it produces is different, though it can be created within Photoshop. However, I preferred the challenge of creating it in-camera, rather than simply deciding afterwards "that would look good with a lensbaby effect". For the price of the lens, I'd certainly recommend picking one up. Am I going to use it all the time? Nope, but I will aim to use it at least once per session or when I'm having no luck with other lenses, even if just to provide a different focus for my efforts (no pun intended!).
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