A Winter Walk with a New Lensbaby

~ Janet Broughton

As always I was over the moon to be sent the latest Lensbaby ahead of the official launch and I was extra excited when I found out it was an updated version of the original Double Glass optic. This was one of the first optics I owned and one that I return to from time, mostly to use with the creative aperture discs.

The Double Glass II is updated with a metal body and internal aperture blades – so no need to pop in different sized aperture discs, this is a bonus for me since I could never be bothered changing the aperture discs on the old one so always shot everything at f4!

It also comes with a set of 9 magnetic aperture discs which are pre-cut in various shapes, including birds, a star and a heart.

Surprisingly my optic sat unused for a little while, I wanted to try out the creative apertures and I knew they would have more impact if I used them outdoors with some highlights.

Lensbaby double glass II night photographyI managed a pre-Christmas evening walk in Scotland, I’d intended to have some fun with the Christmas lights but the reality was it was way to cold to stand still for more than a few seconds, not ideal with a manual focus lens! Once I’d got this slightly creepy shot I headed home to thaw out.

A few weeks ago we had a light dusting of snow and I decided to head out for a walk…..Sunshine in the Millennium Woods, with the heart disc although it had no effect here.Janet Broughton_DGII_DSCF9435.jpgJanet Broughton_DGII_DSCF9436.jpgDSCF9434.jpgThe three above were shot with the heart disc again, I was playing with flare and backlighting, if you look closely you can see some of light coloured areas have taken on the shape of a heart.

Below are using the whirlpool disc, any background detail has taken on a painterly texture…DSCF9464.jpgTesting titleAnd then, just to add to the Lensbaby magic the snow started to fall…Whirlpool discWhirlpool discNo discWhirlpool discWhile I was out shooting I was convinced that I didn’t have the right conditions for the creative aperture discs to be effective. When I got home and looked at the images on my laptop I was amazed to see how much texture the discs had added to the background! I can’t wait to use this optic for garden photography in the spring and summer, it’s going to be amazing for flowers.Bird discWhirlpool discYou can find all the technical details and lots of example photos over on the Lensbaby website – my Ambassador code wBroughton will save you 10% on most products – although unfortunately not on the Double Glass II while it’s a newly launched product.

Would I recommend the Double Glass II?
Absolutely, I think it’s going to spend most of this summer attached to my camera!

All images shown shot on a Fuji X-T20 (crop sensor) at f2.5 using aperture discs as indicated.

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