Lensbabies Launches Lensbabies 2.0
new generation of selective focus SLR lens
March 21, 2005, Las Vegas, NV. Today at the WPPI trade show, Lensbabies launched Lensbaby 2.0, a second-generation selective focus SLR camera lens, bringing brighter, sharper, and faster selective focus photography to professional and avid amateur photographers.
Lensbaby 2.0 and The Original Lensbaby bring one area of a photo into sharp focus, with that 'sweet spot' surrounded by graduated blur, glowing highlights, and subtle prismatic color distortions. Photographers can fluidly move the sharp area around the photo by bending the flexible lens tubing. The Original Lensbaby was introduced in February of 2004.
Lensbaby 2.0 features an f2.0 aperture setting in addition to The Original Lensbaby's f2.8, f4.0, f5.6 and f8.0. With Lensbaby 2.0, a photographer can control the size of the sweet spot of sharp focus by changing the apertures. The brighter the aperture, the smaller the sweet spot of focus and the greater the amount of graduated blurring in the photo's surrounding area.
Lensbaby 2.0 also features a coated, high refractive index, low dispersion optical glass doublet instead of the singled uncoated optical glass element in The Original Lensbaby. Lensbaby 2.0's optic creates a much sweeter sweet spot of focus, which allows photographers to print large photos and see fine details like eye lashes or individual threads of fabric in the sharp area. Photographers will also find that Lensbaby 2.0 has minimal diffusion even at the f2.0 aperture setting.
"We now have two products that will appeal to a broader range of photographers. Many photographers will want to have both versions of Lensbabies in their camera bags; others will naturally find a favorite. We expect those who love soft focus, diffused images will gravitate towards The Original Lensbaby, while photographers who want a brighter lens with a very sharp sweet spot of focus and minimal diffusion will favor Lensbaby 2.0." Said Craig Strong, the Lensbaby inventor and Co-CEO.
Kevin Kubota, a professional photographer who used a prototype Lensbaby 2.0, was thrilled. "The optic is bright and crisp. The images have beautiful mix of clarity and dreaminess. I love using it with my wedding work and find it perfectly suited to feminine portraits like pregnancy and high school seniors. My customers love the 'new' look," said Kubota.
Lensbaby 2.0 also features a levitating magnetic aperture system that makes changing apertures faster than with The Original Lensbaby, which uses a rubber gasket to hold aperture disks in place. Lensbaby 2.0 uses three shielded magnets embedded inside the optics cup to suspend metallicized plastic aperture disks just above the coated optical glass doublet. When a photographer drops an aperture disk into Lensbaby 2.0, it quickly snaps into position. Removal is also very easy: Lensbabies provides a complimentary Cell-Klear(tm) Lenspen® that the photographer inserts through the center hole in the aperture disk to lift it out.
Lensbaby 2.0 is available for sale now at www.lensbabies.com for $150, in camera mounts for virtually all SLR camera bodies. It will be rolled out to specialty photographic supply stores starting in mid-April. Lensbabies continues to offer The Original Lensbaby for $96.