Lensbaby launches a new 22mm pancake lens with its smallest sweet spot to date!
(Image credit: Lensbaby)
Lensbaby creates lenses that differ from the norm and offer users a wide variety of artistic options including blurring and tilt-shifting effects. Its newest release pushes this even further, featuring the 'smallest sweet spot with the most blur outside the sweet spot of any Lensbaby lens'.
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is the newest in its 'Sweet' range, a range focused on creating a pin-sharp area of focus vignetted by a smooth blur effect. The Sweet lens series is among the best Lensbaby lenses and can be used to create bold images that demand the viewer's attention. The lens is compatible with the best full-frame and APS-C cameras available for Canon RF, Nikon Z, Fujifilm X, Sony E, and L mount.
(Image credit: Lensbaby)
The Sweet 22 is a 22mm pancake lens and therefore extremely compact, surprisingly so considering it is constructed of 4 elements in 2 groups, but despite its small form factor, its all-metal body makes it extremely robust. Although compact in depth, it has a substantially large diameter of 2.9", which enables coverage of the full-frame sensor. Due to the tactile nature of the lens' effects, it is a manual focus lens and provides a small focusing ring for precise accuracy.
Lensbaby describes this lens as, "A sea of impressionistic blur gradually transitioning to a precise, tack sharp sweet spot gives photographers the chance to create imagery more dramatic than previous selective focus lenses".
This effect is further utilized with the lens' super-wide angle of view that equates to almost 90 degrees on a full-frame camera, and a fixed aperture of f/3.5. The lens also enables the user to get close and personal with the subject, with a minimum focusing distance of just 5 inches. This, coupled with the blur effect allows separation between the subject and its background.
A sample image of the Lensbaby Sweet 22 (Image credit: Lensbaby | Magda Stolte)
There is also a focus on the video capabilities of this lens, and the announcement trailer shows off its unique artistic effect on the moving image - gone are the days of smearing Vaseline petroleum jelly on your lens!
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is available to buy now for $179.95 /£179, or for $222.95 / £222 as part of the Sweet 22 Kit that includes a Zippered Clamshell Case, Lens Cloth, and 3-stop ND Filter. The Lensbaby lenses are creative tools that encourage viewing the world slightly differently and creating artistic photography in new ways.
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Kalum Carter is a photographer, photo editor and writer based in the UK, and for almost a decade he has worked with brands and publications to create, edit, and sequence imagery. Having recently graduated with a Master's Degree in Photography from the University of the West of England (UWE), Kalum joined Digital Camera World as a Staff Writer, covering news, reviews, and his biggest passion – photography books!
Kalum's photography has been published and exhibited around the world, and he continues to photograph on a project-by-project basis. He is currently working on a personal project capturing the people and landscape of Gower, South Wales. Currently untitled, this body of work will be exhibited for the National Trust later this year.
