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Lensbaby has announced the Spark 2.0 lens and its design draws inspiration from the original Lensbaby launched in 2004. The new lens allows you to adjust the ‘sweet spot’ of focus by physically bending the lens across a wide range of angles. You can adjust where the spot of focus is across the entire frame.
The Spark 2.0 is a 50mm lens with a maximum f/2.5 aperture. With respect to the angle of tilt, Lensbaby states that it is 46mm. The manual focus lens can focus as close as 15″ (38cm). The lens includes a pair of elements in a single group and its total weight is 6.5 oz. (184g).
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| Image credit: Lothar Adamczyk |
Lensbaby founder Craig Strong recorded a user guide video for the Lensbaby Spark 2.0, which can be seen below.
The original Spark 1.0 lens came out in 2012 and had a fixed f/5.6 aperture. The Spark 2.0, on the other hand, comes with the Sweet 50 lens attached, which has an aperture range of f/2.5-f/22, with its respective sweet spot size increasing as you decrease the aperture.
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| Image credit: Sharon Covert |
Strong notes that you may need to enable shooting without a lens in your camera’s settings to shoot with the Lensbaby Spark 2.0. He recommends shooting in aperture priority mode. While your camera won’t communicate electronically with the lens, the camera will read the amount of light coming through the lens and set the exposure settings accordingly.
To focus the Spark 2.0, you squeeze the lens. If you pull the lens straight back toward the image sensor, the sweet spot of focus will remain in the center of the frame. As you tilt the lens, its area of focus moves toward the edge of the frame.
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| Image credit: Lee Manston |
The Spark 2.0 is the first flexible Lensbaby lens available for mirrorless camera systems. The Spark 2.0 is available for a wide array of lens mounts: Canon EF (DSLR), Canon RF (mirrorless), Fuji X, Micro 4/3, Nikon F (DSLR), Nikon Z (mirrorless), Sony E (mirrorless) and Pentax K (DSLR). The Lensbaby Spark 2.0 ships with the Sweet 50 and costs $200 USD. You can view and purchase additional optic swaps here.
Author:
Jeremy Gray
Source: Dpreview
