Free-Lensing Again

I took this shot with my 50mm f1.4 lens this morning while waiting for my ride to work. I like the abstract quality.

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Couple more flower shots

Free-Lensing

Call me a lemming. The minute I read about a new technique, I have to drop everything and try it!

I learned about free-lensing from a Laura Charon’s article on Beyond Megapixels. It’s not for the faint-hearted or badly coordinated (especially if you’re prone to dropping things, like expensive lenses). In a nutshell, free-lensing is the term for removing your lens from the camera and holding it in front of the camera while taking pictures. It allows some light to leak in, some macro effects (putting space between the sensor and the lens duplicates the effect of macro extension tubes), and some interesting tilt-shift effects. It also allows dust to get into your camera, so be careful. And don’t drop your lens. Laura Charon had difficult with the 18-55mm kit lens. I used the 50mm 1.4 lens and had fairly good look for a first-time effort. Mind you, owning a 50mm lens in the first places makes focusing manually a lot easier because you have to use your feet to “zoom” in and out.

For more examples, see the Flickr free-lensing pool.