Lensbaby Edge 35 Optic review

Lensbaby's latest tilt-shift offering adds some spice with a slice of wide-angle focus

Lensbaby Edge 35
(Image: © Angela Nicholson/Digital Camera World)

Digital Camera World Verdict

The Lensbaby Edge 35 is the 35mm version of the beloved optic that consumers have been waiting for. It lives up to expectations, delivering the unique Edge effect in a street photographer-friendly focal length. While the 50mm and 80mm Lensbaby Edge optics are more apt for portraiture, the Lensbaby Edge 35 is a dream for street photography - adding a unique flourish to images, and creating subtle streaks of selective focus or carving out great swathes of blur. It operates identically to its siblings and creates stunning slices of focus, though you need the Lensbaby Composer Pro I or II to use it.

Pros

  • +

    The "street shooter" Edge we wanted

  • +

    Available for almost every mount

  • +

    Surprisingly sharp performance

Cons

  • -

    You also need the Lensbaby Composer Pro I or II

  • -

    Manual focusing can be tricky

  • -

    The effect is not to everyone's taste

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The Edge 35 is part of Lensbaby’s Optic Swap System and is designed to be used with the company’s Composer Pro or the newer Composer Pro II lens housing, which is also available as a kit with the Edge 35 Optic. 

For those unfamiliar, Lensbaby Optics are not lenses in their own right, but add-ons for the Lensbaby Composer Pro housing; this is available for the Canon EF, Canon RF, Nikon F, Nikon Z, Fujifilm X, Micro Four Thirds, Sony E, Sony A, and Pentax K mount - plus for the L Mount used on full-frame Panasonic, Leica, and Sigma mirrorless cameras.

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James Artaius
Editor

The editor of Digital Camera World, James has 21 years experience as a journalist and started working in the photographic industry in 2014 (as an assistant to Damian McGillicuddy, who succeeded David Bailey as Principal Photographer for Olympus). In this time he shot for clients like Aston Martin Racing, Elinchrom and L'Oréal, in addition to shooting campaigns and product testing for Olympus, and providing training for professionals. This has led him to being a go-to expert for camera and lens reviews, photo and lighting tutorials, as well as industry news, rumors and analysis for publications like Digital Camera MagazinePhotoPlus: The Canon MagazineN-Photo: The Nikon MagazineDigital Photographer and Professional Imagemaker, as well as hosting workshops and talks at The Photography Show. He also serves as a judge for the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest. An Olympus and Canon shooter, he has a wealth of knowledge on cameras of all makes – and a fondness for vintage lenses and instant cameras.