A few days ago Lensbaby announced the Velvet 28, a full-frame 28mm creative effect lens available in a range of mounts. It seemed the perfect time to catch up with the founder, Craig Strong, to hear how the company is doing and to get a little background on the new optic.
Lensbaby lenses are assembled in Portland, Oregon, with parts coming from Portland and China. Fortunately, despite some supply chain issues resulting from the Covid-19 crisis, the company has managed to continue production.
In the video below, Craig explains how wedding photographers were the company’s initial intended market. The aim was to create lenses that enable photographers to create something unique in-camera and capture the essence of a scene.
Since the first Lensbaby lens arrived in 2004, with its bendy plastic body, the company has developed an extensive collection of lenses. There are those like the Velvet 28 that might be considered traditional lenses, and those that use the ‘optic swap’ system. They enable photographers to capture images with fours effects, ‘Sweet’, ‘Edge’, ‘Velvet’ and ‘Swirl’.
Sweet lenses produce a sweet sport of sharpness surrounded by blur, Edge lenses have a slice of sharp focus and Swirl lenses have swirly bokeh. The Velvet lenses have an attractive glow.
In the UK you can order the Lensbaby Velvet 28 from Wex Photo Video for £519, in the US it’s available from B&H Photo for $549.95
The video below is Lensbaby’s introduction to the Velvet 28.