Jon Sienkiewicz Blog

Misprint? No. The latest “all-in-one” zoom lens from Tamron ranges from 16mm to 300mm, the equivalent of 24mm to 450mm on my Nikon D300s (with APS-C size sensor). Add Vibration Compensation (VC), excellent Macro focusing and PZD Piezo Drive for quiet and blazing-fast autofocus and you’ve got “Lensational.”

Sometimes an old fashioned recipe and the latest modern technology don’t mix: zap-blasting your grandmother’s vegetable soup ingredients in a 10,000-watt microwave instead of slowly simmering them for six hours, for example. But other times strange bedfellows bring out the best in each other. Such is the case with Lensbaby optics on modern digital cameras.

We’ve all covered the front of a lens with sandwich wrap or a nylon stocking and created a DIY special effects filter at one time or another. Maybe you’ve even smeared an old UV or Skylight with Vaseline or crayon wax to produce creative distortion. Cool, no? Well, those are NOTHING compared to the incredible optical tricks you can do with the new Omni Creative Filter System from Lensbaby.

Unless you’re completely new to photography, you’ve heard about Lensbaby, the marvelously creative series of lenses that are best described as intentionally unsharp and stuffed with almost every imaginable aberration and distortion. The Lensbaby Trio 28 is the latest model, and it has a secret. 

Making a lens sharp and acceptably free of aberrations is hard. Very hard. Making a lens that can be both tack-sharp and intentionally soft, pleasantly unsharp and able to exploit the native beauty of certain optical aberrations is even harder. Then there’s Lensbaby.

An effective camera support that could be used as a pillow when you snooze in the back of your pickup truck in a pinch? Hard to believe? Take my word for it—this thing is as sensible as it is functional. 

If it wasn’t so corny I’d call the LitraTorch a pocket full of sunshine. Instead I’ll call it the future of portable constant lighting for videographers and photographers.