Blog — Ben Harvey Photography

What did I miss?

If you have not yet seen the video about this personal project of mine, go watch that first, as I explain the concept behind it and show you plenty of images. Click the link below.

If you prefer to absorb content at your own pace, I have also written a three-part blog about the project, which you will find here Part 1 Part 2 and Part 3.

Brighton Clock Tower - shot with 80mm Lensbaby

So what is new?

Having published the above video on my YouTube video, a few people reached out and share their advice on how I could progress the project, in a few different ways. One option was using a lens baby.

Brighton Pavilion Ice Rink - 80mm Lens Baby

What is a lens baby?

Lens baby lenses were a bit of a photographic fad around 10 or 15 years ago. There were various options and accessories, but the general principle is that the lens was in a ball socket and could therefore be bent and twisted to create distortion in the image. At the time of starting ‘The Bokeh Project’ I couldn’t find any examples of them being used for a similar purpose, most often they were being used for portraiture and still life where the subject is clear and in focus and the surrounding was impossibly out of focus. Like most fads, it was exciting to start with, but the excitement wears off pretty quickly.

The Lens Baby lenses are tiny, almost toy-like in their size - 80mm f2.8

Do you want my lens baby?

Reinforcing what I said above, one of my kind viewers said that his lens baby was gathering dust, did I want it for my Bokeh Project? I jumped at the chance, and he even covered the shipping costs from USA. Thank you, you know who you are.

The Grand - Brighton hotel 80mm LensBaby

Why would you use a lens baby over your tilt-shift lens Ben?

Good question I ask myself….well, till shift lenses are very expensive, and only come in a handful of focal lengths and only a few companies make them. Parts 1,2 and 3 of the project to date had been shot on a 24mm tilt shift lens. The only variation of this was when I mounted it on a cropped sensor camera, making it roughly 38mm. The Canon 24mm TS lens also has a maximum aperture of f3.5, which is not that fast. Shelling out a lot of money for the Canon 45mm or 90mm TS lenses just seemed very expensive for a personal project, so I have held off for many years.

Canon 24mm Tilt Shift lens, showcasing it’s ability to tilt in both directions

The lens baby kit arrives and I all of a sudden have the option of using a 35mm f1.8 lens and an 80mm f2.8 lens, all of which can bend to create selective out of focus in my photographs. Coincidentally it arrives in autumn, which leading up to Christmas is the prime time for shooting out of focus lights.

Factor in, and maybe this has changed now, that the Lens baby was designed to go on a DSLR, therefore I am using it on my Canon 5D mark 3, which is over ten years old now and not incredible in low-light (when compared to modern day cameras).

Are the lens baby lenses any good?

You don’t get a lens baby for its optical performance, and it is technically very challenging to get the focus right at these focal lengths and apertures, especially since it is manual focus. Combine that with the reduced depth of field that you get when you tilt the lens, and you have very little chance of getting the image in focus. You therefore have to reply upon shooting multiple images and hoping that one of them is in focus.

Are there any alternatives?

Well it turns out that there are. I thought that lenses were only tilt AND shift, however some lens manufacturers make lenses that only tilt, which is what I need to create this ‘bokeh effect’. The tilting effect seems to be much easier to manufacture than the shifting element. After a bit of research I found two options, bearing in mind that I was after a focal length that was longer than my 24mm, and something with a faster aperture for maximum bokeh!

AstrHori 50mm f1.4 tilt lens

If you start searching for tilt lenses you will find two options. The first is the AstrHori 50mm, which you will find has better reviews that the TT Artisan when it comes to optical performance, however it has a similar mechanism to the Lens Baby which has tightening rings and a full range of movement like a ball socket. Having used the lens baby in a variety of situations, I am more enticed by a lens that moves in one direction at a time.

TTArtisan 50mm f1.4 tilt lens

After watching way too many reviews on YouTube, I settled on the TTArtisan 50mm lens, which is a more traditional lens that tilts only in one plane, which you can rotate to be left/right up/down or even diagonal. If you watch enough review of this lens, and you get a balanced view, you will find that it is optically not very good at all. Chris Frost (link here) made a review of it and he said that it was the worst 50mm he had ever reviewed in terms of optical performance.

Why would you buy it then?

This is simple. Because I have other lenses that are very sharp with incredible autofocus and no lens defects, but that can be a bit boring sometimes! You buy this lens to get a unique look and enjoy the process of being more involved. Similar to how lens baby lenses were fashionable, people became quickly bored with the effect, you need to be deliberate with the areas of focus. Which I believe is how you keep the ‘effect’ interesting, without being obvious and one dimensional.

Brighton Clock Tower with 50mm TTArtisan at F1.4

Brighton Pavilion Ice Rink - TTArtisan 50mm

The TTArtisan is also designed for mirrorless cameras, which means that I can use it handheld on a modern camera and not have to worry so much about noise, plus I am shooting at very large apertures which is benefitting the shutter speed.

How do you find the right subject?

I am always trying to find compositions that include a focal point as well as interesting out of focus areas, that compliment the main subject. Time of day is also important, as a pure black sky is less interesting that a royal blue sky with a lit up foreground. Therefore when the ambient light matches the exposure of the artificial lighting is the sweet spot! I tend to tilt the lens from left to right more than I do up and down, as I find that it closer replicates the nature of depth of field, I am simply exaggerating this with the tilt mechanism. Below is an example of an image that is tilted upwards rather from side to side.

Brighton Clock Tower - LensBaby tilted upwards creating a horizontal plane of focus

More please!

I will continue to add more images here as I create them. Thanks for reading!