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amazon Lensbaby Velvet 28 reviews
If there is such a thing as McDreamy in glass, it is the Lensbaby Velvet 28. Velvet line will be about light-gathering capabilities from a company known for lenses that abjure optical integrity in favor of experimental effects.
While most lens manufacturers nowadays work to design the sharpest and distortion-free of lenses, Portland, OR-based Lensbaby is a sort of an artistic lens company that embraces the physical resource, anything common and surprising. Its simple and no-electronics lenses give a variety of in-camera effects, from blur to controllable vignettes.
As with the Velvet 56 and 85, Velvet 28 has lost its soft light at wide apertures and is dissipated when the aperture is made narrow. It provides wide focal lengths for use in landscapes and environmental portraits, common for flower and close-ups. Close-ups are also still an option, as the Velvet 28 maintains the 1:2 macro capabilities of other Velvet lenses.
Manual Focus Lens for CCTV and Mirrorless Dhadi: Canon EF, Nikon F, Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E, Fujifilm X, and Micro Four Thirds are manual focus lenses short in DSLR and mirrorless mounts.
All compound metal.
Well, the Lensbaby Velvet 28 looks a tad different from the premium lenses in my kit, but otherwise feels ready for professional use. No autofocus or autoexposure, but the all-metal body is rock solid and well built.
This is a large lens. Lacking, though, its short-sightedness and an autofocus motor will mitigate that. It didn’t feel too heavy on the front of my Nikon D850, which is a fairly large DSLR. This lens version weighs a little over a pound, while the mirrorless version weighs about 1.3 pounds.
The focus ring occupies most of the surface area of the lens. The ring moves smoothly, as with manual focus lenses, and has more travel than a standard, minute soon adjust able autofocus lens. There’s also the traditional opening ring, as the lack of an electronic phonebook cuts you off from aperture control from camera.
This includes a fine metal lens cap and takes 67mm filters.
Note: We tested a pre-production model of this lens and the final-version lens will have minor changes from that lens pictured in this review, including f/22 aperture setting labeling.
The subject is interesting.
Manual focusing may have its place: it is good because it slows you down. The moment you consider the precise focus while slowing down, you will likewise think about your composition.
However, there is no denying the advantages of autofocus. Getting that peak focus in mirrorless cameras or live-view on DSLRs was never as easy. Getting a decisive sharp photo is more like a hit-and-miss for manual focus and slightly soft lens designs. Essentially, it is best to focus at around f/4 for a sharp photograph before opening it to the desired effect. Not very practical and excessive on manual focus.
While manual focus is a pain and Velvet 28 excels at it, this lens can quite literally focus anywhere from two inches to infinity. The lens can cover 1:2 macro work, which means going beyond the traditional two feet of other 28mm lenses.
There are no electric contacts to the camera: exposure is out the window, and you won’t even save metadata on the lens to your files.
These moments with manual focus may be tiresome, but nothing beats the pure, rugged creativity it affords you. Velvet 28 was a real blast to work with. Glorious lens flair adds another element to the in-camera creativity plate beside aperture and shutter speed.
Dreamy image quality.
The maximum potential aperture is f/2.5, while the “plus” mark on the lens indicates an additional 1/3 stop of light and ever-more glow effect- at least on the sides. At that super wide aperture, the whole image is soft and diffuse, with the counterpoint being at f/8, where Velvet 28 looks almost like regular glass.
In the case of this lens, at its widest setting, the entire image appears as if veiled by fog. Color washes over the edges, and objects practically glow, particularly white or over-exposed areas in the image. At f/2.8, contrast begins to tank, while the center is still soft. f/4 is where a little crispness starts developing in the middle of the frame but the sides maintain that dreamy glow. The sweet spot would be around f/5.6, where it provides decent sharpness with maintaining most of the glow effect. Not-so-healthy sharpness in the middle area is still observed against an ordinary lens, but yes, this one could also be a factor of user error in manual focusing.
In terms of f/16 or f/22, that really smooth lighting becomes somewhat less available across the image.
When shooting wide open, the white parts of the shot usually capture most of that light. In this situation, the edges of white objects flow into each other thus producing the halo effect. If this image is intentionally overexposed, that halo can be enhanced. Hence, another approach of using Velvet creatively has to do with lights in the mode of halo.
Even then, with a wide-angle lens, I found myself filling the frame with my subjects much more to get dreamy edges much more apparent. Conversely, light directed toward the edges tends to muddy with the back opacity. The lens can still be used for landscapes, creating an intentional cloud over the entire image or providing soft blur at the edges.
Lensbaby Velvet 28 brings dreamy light to wide-angle shots. When done properly, it is one look that can be incredible, and without time and forethought, it appears merely an image that isn’t in focus. Fine art photographers will love him; peeping pixels.
The smooth metallic construction, the focus ring, and the aperture ring make for a really premium feel, and macro focusing increases the creative possibilities.
Lack of auto-focus and auto-exposure along with deliberate softness mean that patience as well as trial and error is involved while shooting with this lens.
where can you get a Lensbaby Velvet 28 online
Lensbaby Velvet 28 for Nikon F: Buy it now
Lensbaby Velvet 28 for Canon EF: Buy it now
Lensbaby Velvet 28 Fuji X (LBV28F): Buy it now
Lensbaby Velvet 28 for Sony E: Buy it now