Lensbaby: Bending your perspective

There's not a whole lot of printed resources on the Lensbaby line but then again, after getting this book, there really doesn't need to be either. The Lensbaby products are a great way for a photographer to bring the world to the viewer in a refreshing and creative way. The only problem is, with the Lensbaby system, there is a bit of a steep learning curve. This book does a wonderful job of giving you access to instant success with your Lensbabies. It fully describes each of the lens bodies, optics, and accessories and tells you how to properly swap them out. Doug Sahlin's little ebook does a good job of this too. "Bending Your Perspective" goes past the description and tutorials on swapping optics and provides some beautiful photographs along with the descriptions of exactly how they were achieved, right down to ISO and f-stop information. I recommend you pack up your Lensbabies, camera, and this book, and take a nice little day trip with the intent of mastering your Lensbabies. I guarantee you will look back at the end of the day and feel very accomplished!After your 'learning field trip,' keep this book handy for reference. It's all you will ever need in the way of Lensbaby reference material.

After buying a Lensbaby 3G and doing all I could to understand the concept of it, I decided to buy this book. I even called Lensbaby. After working with conventional lenses, my mind was having a difficult time wondering what was so great about this lens. This book will show you.The author will take you through what the lenses are, the optics, how to swap them out and what each lens is designed for. And as he is doing this, he is showing you photos of what he is explaining, including what lens and optic that was used and why he took the picture. Beautiful photos. Also he takes you through every aspect of photography, portraits, macro, landscape, etc. Even video.I was so inspired that I have added to my Lensbaby collection; Composer, the Sweet 35, the wide angle and telephoto lens kit which comes with the macro kit, the creative apertures and the optic Swap System.The Lensbaby system is something every photographer should have. It takes you out of the norm, and this book will help you get there. If I could rate this book higher I would, but 5 stars will have to do.

I recently purchased a Lensbaby (Composer) and got this book at the same time. I am SO glad I did! Without this book it would have taken me forever to explore the capabilities of my new lens, but with the comprehensive narrative and multitude of photos in Bending Your Perspective, I was able to very quickly grasp the concepts. I was immediately able to take amazing photographs and get endless ideas for different ways to use my new toy. I would very strongly recommend this book to anyone who buys (or already has) any of the Lensbaby lenses. In fact, it has a great section explaining the differences in the types of Lensbaby, so it would be helpful to purchase even before you choose your lens. Even if you've already got a Lensbaby and know how to use it, I'd still recommend this publication because of the huge number of photos, which include details about how each one was taken. As far as I'm concerned, this book Is a must-have for ALL Lensbaby users - order it now!!!!!!!!!!

i read the whole book within a day and reviewed part of it another day. I believe it helps me to use Lensbaby in a more creative way not just for the effect. The book is simple and easily comprehensive. There are two area this book does very well. First, it let you understand the difference and unique quality of each component of Lensbaby with illustrative pictures e.g. double glass vs plastic optic. Second, It provides creative usage of Lensbaby on different subject e.g. Wedding. There is only one obviously complaint, the book's table of content index is not working. That means you can not jump to a specific chapter if you want to review certain subject. Overall good tool and worth re-read from time to time for inspiration.

This review is on the first edition by Corey Hilz. When this book came out it was the first of its kind to explain how the Lensbaby Lenses and Optics work together and what results you can create using DSLR cameras.Recently, Corey's second edition was published--that would be a much better choice for folks new to the Lensbaby family.The Lensbaby system is comprised of lenses that can tilt and shift and provide artistic abstract images.Another resource for folks wanting support is the Lensbaby website: [...] there are numerous social media options to view these great creative images.If you are new to Lensbaby and get the Edge 80 Optic, this is covered in the second edition, not the first.The fun and creativity can be addictive!Enjoy!

I am enjoying this book and find that he's got some good ideas for creatively using Lensbaby lenses as well as the basics of how to use them. However, be aware that the Kindle for iPad edition does a poor job of keeping the caption with the correct photo. The photos display well but the caption may be on the next page, may be before the photo or after it. Keeps you on your toes. This is my first Kindle photography book - or 'picture' book for that matter - this may be a common problem for all I know.

I had bought the lens baby lens at a photo show as I had been intrigued with some of the work that had been done with it. The problem that I had was I was at a loss as to how to proceed with its use. This book helped me to understand how the various components work together to accomplish the interesting results that I have seen. Although because of the weather and my lack of mobility at this time of year I have not been able to be out to do the kind of photography I like. Come spring I'm looking forward to taking some interesting wild flower shots because of the help of this little book .

I have been using Lensbaby lenses for some time and love the manipulation that becomes available. I have the Composer Pro and the Spark along with different optics and accessories including the Sweet 35.This book adds great value to all of my Lensbaby goodies and provides lots of information and examples of the differences between the different optics, which makes it much clearer and helps envisage the final shot.The book also provides lots of good advice as to the aperature accessory to use for ease of use and focusing. The best piece which I have adopted on many occassions is just have the Lensbaby on the camera and use it totally. This is good advice for any lens you may have to experience all their functionalities and equally their potential failures, or rather how to get round those.The photos in the book add depth and quality to the comment and help being delivered.I have both the hard copy and the ebook version and I use them both.If you have a Lensbaby, this is a must, even if you don't, there is lots of quality in here which will explain and support lens selection, aperature use and might even get you hooked on venturing out to being a Lensbaby!

The Lensbaby is a unique camera lens system. The main feature of the Lensbaby is the ability to bend the lens to place the sweet spot of focus to produce fun or creative photographs. The Lensbaby system has a wide range of lens: Composer, Composer Pro, Muse, Scout, and Control Freak and interchangeable optics such as double glass, pinhole and zone plate. In addition there is a wide arrange of accessories available like the creative aperture kit.This book is a great help navigating all these variations and helps you select which lens and optic is best for you. Unfortunately the book is in need of an update as the latest additions to Lensbaby line-up: the Composer Pro and Sweet 35 optic are not covered. The latter optic has an inbuilt aperture ring and does not take any of the accessories that work with the other Lensbaby optics so this is an important difference missing from the book.There is a chapter on how to use the Lensbaby on your DSLR camera. The Lensbaby is manual focus and manual exposure so this chapter is very handy to get up to speed quickly on how to use the Lensbaby.The book also has several chapters of example photographs from professional photographers using the Lensbaby lens. Portfolio topics include: portrait, wedding, commercial, landscape, flowers and urban. The wide range of portfolios shows the extent to which the creative aspects of the Lensbaby can be applied.The paper quality and photograph reproduction are excellent and better than the average from Focal Press.The book drops a star rating as the book is a little behind with the latest Lensbaby models but it is still an excellent reference for the others models and the portfolio chapters have a wide range of inspirational photographs.

I looked for inspiration on google before buying this Lensbaby book and now that I've got the book I think the google results were better. I say that because the information and photos I found on google were for the Lensbaby product that I own whereas this book covers all flavours, of which there are many.In my opinion, there were three stunning images in this book and about seven quite interesting shots (the rest were not special); unfortunately, just one of the ten shots that I liked in the book was taken using the product I own. I really like photo books that tell you how each shot was set up and which settings were used as I find it's a great starting point for creating my own shots; this book doesn't provide that information or a lot of other information to help anyone develop their skills with Lensbaby products.The one thi

Bought this book when i started building my Lensbaby arsenal. Its crucial for you to understand how to operate even better with your Lensbaby and learn new techniques and combinations.The book, offers a deep view on all Lensbaby mounts/lens/optics/accessories, followed by example photos with the technical aspects of the shots (ISO, aperture, optic type, etc) . Theres a small introduction about photography to learn about ISO, exposures, etc, if your a newbie on PhotographyKeep in mind that theres a new update version of this book (released on November 2012), that already cover the more recent lens by Lensbaby such as Edge 80 and the Sweet 35 Optic.

I am glad I purchased this book when I got my Lensbaby Composer Pro. It is really helpful, explaining how the interchangeable optics work and what to expect from each type of lens and optic. It also provides many examples of photos which spark off the imagination. This book would best be purchased before you purchase a Lensbaby lens then you will be able to decide which bits of kit are for you. Highly recommended.