Lensbaby Burnside 35

Cost: $499.95

Has options to mount to: Canon (DSLR), Nikon (DSLR), Sony (Mirrorless), Fuji X (Mirrorless) and Micro 4/3 (Mirroless)

35 mm f2.8

Main effect - Bokeh and Vignette

https://lensbaby.com/product/burnside-35/
 

About the lens:

This lens is only manual focus. There is a slider that adjusts a secondary aperture to give a vignette effect in camera. This is a lens that takes some playing around to see how the effect looks with your photos. I took mine on the and had a photoshoot with one of my cacti. Lensbaby recommends separating your subject from your background by about 12 feet to get the best bokeh. My balcony is not that long, so I could not try that. I focused mostly on the vignette, although you can still see the bokeh in my photos.

There are 4 settings for the additional aperture. I took a photo of my cactus with each one, as shown below. Each photo was taken with the same settings, consecutively. The settings were 1/80 sec with ISO 1250.

Lensbaby Example of Secondary Aperture Vignette EffectWidest Secondary Aperture Lensbaby Example of Secondary Aperture Vignette EffectSecond Widest Secondary Aperture Lensbaby Example of Secondary Aperture Vignette EffectThird Widest Secondary Aperture - Start to see the effect of the Vignette Lensbaby Example of Secondary Aperture Vignette EffectSmallest Secondary Aperture - Most Extreme Vignette

The two more extreme settings have much more effect, and definitely isolate the subject and make it the focus. I think if you were to use this lens for the vignette effect, it would be better to use the more extreme secondary apertures. Even without my subject being 12 feet away from the background (it was probably about a foot away from the wall or less), you can see the blurring and rounding effect this has. I am excited to try this lens for some landscape photos, because the Lensbaby website says it can be fun to experiment with bokeh and soft edges as well as a painterly effect.

The focus will stay in the center, and the slider increases bokeh swirl, as well as darkening edges. This would be great for portraits, especially environmental portraits, or single subject images.

This would not be my go-to lens, but it is fun to play with and gives fun effects. It is also manual focus, so this would be no use for moving objects for me. I am looking forward to trying it with landscapes soon.