What is a Lensbaby selective focus lens?

Summer picnic 1, originally uploaded by Otto Phokus.

I thought I might as well keep posting tonight while I am thinking about these things I have been wanting to blog about.

Look at this picture and you see the center of the picture is in focus and both sides are out of focus, there you go, selective focus. You manually squeeze the lens, or compress the lens in and out, back and forth until you find your sweet spot. This picture I used a 2.8 aperture diaphram that you have to manually insert into the lensbaby lens. And then all the settings are manual, like the speed... there is not Auto Focus, or Otto Phokus in my pun of a name.

This is a soft looking blur, not quite as sharp as some of the higher aperture disks. I thought for this party since I will be inside and outside, and overcast day I will use a lower aperture that lets in more light. Well I did get some good pictures, but I think of my pictures as little paintings, that some day I will get to watercolor, or paint when I have the time years from now.

I heard one person speak of a similar photo/composition he took with this depth of field, focus, and he stated that he could get a picture of his three son in focus playing baseball. The pitcher, batter, and catcher, all in focus, where normally they would not all be in focus.

I have a lot of fun using this lens the lensbaby 2.0, and the lensbaby 3G for static multiple shots you have to set up or compose, and I also have the macro lenses, the wide angle, and 1.6x telephoto adapter for the lensbaby lens. I haven't used a regular lens since I have this now almost 8 months, and I have some nice regular lenses. To me it makes digital photography a lot of fun.

CC's WOODEN GRILL

CC's WOODEN GRILL, originally uploaded by Otto Phokus.

Thought I would post some pictures from my Flickr account that have not received any views. I always liked this picture because it reminds a bit of a medeterranean theme with the bluish background, and the color of the tiles of the outdoor patio area. Anyway it has been a long, harsh, cold, wet, icy, snowy winter season so far, and I need to think of some warmer places. Can't wait for the spring weather to arrive and stay.

Marigold flower unopened

Marigold flower unopened, originally uploaded by Otto Phokus.

It's amazing what pictures people like, you can't even guess it right, you just have to put up your best, and a lot of variety, and see what takes off. I happen to like this one, the bokah, blur, and colors of this picture; and someone else marked it as a favorite too.

Frozen Pond Fun

Frozen Pond Fun, originally uploaded by Otto Phokus.

As you can see the Pond is frozen over, and it is being cleared for ice skating and ice hockey. I am also using this picture as my first test post from Flickr to blog. Photrade is having a hard go of it since they lost all there funding as a result of the current financial crisis, and it's a coin toss as to how long they can keep going. Flickr is the premier picture site anyway, so I am just going to upload to there from now on.

Taking pictures with my Lensbaby, and new Car

I was at a picnic Saturday, took about 250 pictures with the Lensbaby 2 lens,and f 2.8 aperture disk, with 1.6x telephoto. Not many keepers in the bunch (series), still weeding through them all. Artistically I like some of them, but they are not in the normal sense, to the average person, the idea of what a picture should look like. A lot of blur/bokah (selective focus), and softness.
I choose the wrong aperture. I should of went with f5.8 or higher. I thought with the overcast, lowlight, indoor ,and outdoor change of shooting scene, the 2.8 aperature would give me a lot of light to work with, but it also gave me more blur and softness, when I wanted more strong focus. Plus the fact I am shooting from the hip, not composing many shots, and then the indoor lighting giving the yellowish tint, I should of changed my camera setting to reflect the indoor lighting but forgot. Even with the 1.6x telephoto, it is still bascially a foot zoom lens, meaning you have to move with your feet to focus, rather than moving the lens, so sometimes you get the picture, and sometimes you don't. I should of known the 2.8 aperture was too low, so unless I have the time to compose the picture, take my time, and review afterwards, I will go with f/4 or above from now on.

Bought my new car on Wednesday. A 2008 Suzuki SX4 Sport. 0% financing. Took about 1 1/2 hours at the dealer to seal the deal, and then I drove home, and got a ride back in to pick up the new car. The car has everything I was hoping to get when I started my search. I will have to write more on this later, especially the fact that the Ford Focus looks strikingly similar to the Suzuki SX4 Sport. Just like my Suzuki 2 door Vitara, looks like a Chevy Tracker. In both cases I got the better deal with Suzuki. Once the weather clears up I will post some pictures of my new car.

Favorite things discontinued - And some New Things

I was going to order another vacuum coffee maker this weekend, either the 5 cup model, or another 10 cup model, but Bodem-Santos has discontinued the electric vacuum coffee maker. The stove top model won't work for me. The electric model has a timer, and is nicely compact, works great. It is even a form of entertainment watching the coffee brew through the clear plastic. The steam produced by the heated water in the bottom pushes the heated water up into the top where it mixes with the coffee grounds and boils, then when the heat is off, it all comes back down into the bottom again, ready to drink. Hot! 196 degrees at least. That is just one of the 3 or 4 items in the last month that I tried to get that is now discontinued. I am on a roll here.
I am going out car shopping tomorrow. My little 4 wheel drive is now in it 9th year, and I think it needs to be driven less for it to last me a few more years. I was hoping to wait about 2 more years to get another car, but tomorrow might be the day.
Another Suzuki for me. Either the SX4 Sport ( good financing till 9/30) or the SX4 Crossover.
The picutures here are of a pine cone in the drive way, looks sort of interesting/abstract maybe, and the wasp on the yellow flower is one of my favorites.

Lensbaby came out with some new SLR Lenses today;

"THREE LENSES,INFINITE POSSIBILITIES
No two eyes are exactly the same – especially when they belong to an artist who sees for a living. Given these infinite possibilities, Lensbaby offers three distinctly different lens bodies for different types of shooters. Each lens gets you to the same place: a Sweet Spot of sharp focus surrounded by graduated blur. But each one gets you there in a way that reflects your individual personality and shooting style. Are you fast and loose? Smooth and precise? Methodical and step-by-step? Your first decision is: which Lensbaby has your name on it?"

I think the Lensbaby Composer has my name on it....

Aperture Nature Photography Workshops Contest

Oh well my Saddleback Caterpillar Photo didn't get me to the workshop. A week in Jacksonhole, Wy at the Grand Tetons would of been real nice. Beleive it or not, 3 out of the 4 pictures chosen pictures were scenic views, or landscapes, heavily edited, HDR, IR and looked more like Thomas Kincade oil paintings than natural real photographs.
I would think nature, natural, plants, animal, bugs, insects, fish... not all scenery and landscapes would of been the chosen winning pictures. Where is the rationel for each selection? The reason it was picked, and why?s Just the pictures, no explanations for the selections given.(To see the picture I submitted, look in my Insect, bug... gallery by clicking on one of the Photrade links)

Tonight I think I will add 2 of the grape pictures I took around the farm, from my Cherry and Grapes gallery. One of the pictures looks like raisins on the vine, dried up, and the other one was on the ground, and has a bite taken out of it by a bird.

In the next day or two I will have to post a picture of my iPhone page with all the Kanji and Japanese Language apps I have installed on my iPhone. Almost a whole page full (you can have 16 total apps on one page). Later I will give a brief explanation about the language and what it entails to learn it, pronounciation, written, graphic... , and today I ran into a stranger at work with a Kanji tatoo. I asked him if he knew what it meant. He said he, and a few of his close friends all have the same tattoo. They researched it, and he said it was Chinese for Eternal Life. Which would be right because the Japanese Language evolved out of Chinese Language, and that is where we will pick up the rest of the story later on the Jananese Language. I looked up Eternal Life on my iPhone App, Jishobot: English/Japanese Dictionary, and there were 3 results for Eternal Life, and his Kanji tatoo was one of them.

Smiling Yellow Jacket

Another picture from my album on Photrade. I will have to figure out how to make thumb nails of previous pictures, and I want to add a few more gadgets to the blog, but for now I have to get ready for my real day job!

First Blog Post - mostly a test.

One of many pictures I have taken with my digital camera, a Nikon D40x. This one of the Caterpillar, was taken with a lensbaby 2.0 Selective Focus Lens. I am mostly using one of my 2 Lensbaby lenses right now for pictures, and will post a lot more links to my Photrade page. Hope you like them.