Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Sweet 35




I must admit that not all items in my camera bag get equal use. It has been a long time since I used the Lensbaby Sweet 35 lens, at least it feels that way. But before I go on, I must digress.

I have been a Nikon Shooter for close to 10 years. I know the buttons and controls in my sleep. But during the last couple of years many of my friends have been making the switch to the Fuji X system. It's small, lightweight, the quality is stunning and finally it got to the point that I could no longer ignore the Fuji. So about a year ago I made the plunge and purchased the XT-1 and several lenses. Ever since I have been having a love and hate relationship with the Fuji. I love the Fuji because of all the items that I listed above. It's just sometimes the controls are not intuitive to me. This has caused me to fumble at times when I should be in the moment. I'm sure most of this could have been avoided if I had locked myself in a room for a day and read the horrible little manual that seems to accompany any camera regardless of cost.

Let's get back to the the Lensbaby. I have no idea what the market share is for the Fuji X- Series cameras, but at this point it must be small enough that Lensbaby has not opted to make a lens specifically for the Fuji. So I obtained an adapter from FotoDiox (on Amazon) and it has sat in my camera bag for the better part of a year, that is until last weekend. I decided to finally try the adapter and the Lensbaby. It was wonderful, and once I was looking through the viewfinder it was the same as it has always been. The experience was seamless. I'm not sure when I will reach for the Lensbaby and Fuji combo, but I'm sure it won't be a year.

The final image was processed using MacPhun Tonality Pro.   For a discount on all MacPhun products use the discount code "ROADRUNNER".    Clients of Road Runner Photography Tours are eligible for a 10% discount on Lensbaby products.  Contact us for the discount code.

One last thing, the image above was shot at the W.A. Young & Sons Machine Shop in Rices Landing, PA on one of our recent meetups.

UPDATE: Rumor has it that Lensbaby will be announcing a version of their lens for Fuji cameras.  Stay tuned...

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