To start the new year off right, I want to start a new series of blogs! In these blogs I will be talking about the things I use in my photography and I’ll show you guys the results these things give and how you can use them in different ways.

The first blog in this series is about a cute and cheap little lens I got for Christmas, the Lensbaby Spark.

Now believe me when I say this lens feels more like a nice toy than a professional tool, but you can get great results with it! It’s a cute little plastic lens that you focus manually by pushing and twisting it. This creates a tilt-shift effect with a small focus point while the majority of the image is out of focus and blurred. My boyfriend got it for me because I mentioned it a couple of times and he knows I like to try new things and experiment with my photography, so this was the perfect gift for me!

To test it,  I invited over my muse Tinotenda to shoot for a few hours and just experiment and have some fun without a plan or any expectations. Sometimes days like that are really good if you’re stuck in a rut or your creativity is a little blocked because you feel like you’re just doing the same thing over and over. (I can’t be the only one who gets like that, right?)

Working with this lens really takes some practice. It’s quite hard to find the right way to focus and manipulate the effect, but once you get the hang of it it’s really a lot of fun.  What’s confusing at first is that you have no idea what aperture you’re shooting at, because the lens doesn’t tell you its aperture and the camera can’t read it either. After looking it up I found that the Aperture is said to be 5.6 and it’s a 50mm lens. This kind of gives you an idea of what you’re working with and can help you figure out what camera settings to use.

I couldn’t shoot with it for too long, because it did kind of mess up my eyes ability to focus and see properly! You can see that not every image is perfectly focused on the model’s face but with the kind of results you get it doesn’t always matter that much. When you’re shooting creative images, the only limit is your own imagination and interpretation. Don’t be afraid to get weird with it!

Check out a few of the setups we did using the Lensbaby Spark! It’s definitely not for every shoot, but you’ll see it really adds a different atmosphere and mood to an image, which makes it a great tool for creative photography.

The Lensbaby Spark is available for Canon and Nikon cameras.

Check out Lensbaby and all they have to offer here (affiliate link)