Price when reviewed
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is a great first Lensbaby lens. It’s easy to use and has a dramatic effect with a wide angle of view. The central sharp zone contrasts well with the blurred, stretched surroundings and it encourages you to find new subjects to photograph.
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is a standalone lens that creates the same in-camera effect as the company’s Sweet optics that can be used in the any of the Lensbaby housings such as the Composer Pro II, Spark 2.0 or Straight Barrel.
It’s a full-frame lens with a focal length of 22mm and its available in Canon RF, Nikon Z, Fujifilm X and Sony FE mounts. On an APS-C format camera it has an effective focal length of around 33mm.
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is a comparatively simple lens that creates a sweet spot of sharp focus at the centre of the frame with stretched blur around the outside. As the barrel is solid rather than bendy like the Composer Pro II and Spark 2.0, the sharp spot stays at the centre of the frame and can’t be moved.
The sweet spot of focus in the centre and the stretched bokeh is obvious in this image shot on the Sony A7R IV
Unlike like the Sweet 35, Sweet 50 and Sweet 80 optics, the Sweet 22’s aperture is not adjustable, it’s fixed at f/3.5. That makes using the lens very easy. I usually shoot in aperture priority mode, but manual exposure mode works well to. If the ISO is set to ‘Auto’ with an appropriate maximum, you only need to set the shutter speed you want to freeze (or not) any movement, focus and shoot.
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is a very short lens, putting it in the ‘pancake’ category, which means it looks neat on most mirrorless cameras that it can be mounted on.
Like all Lensbaby lenses, the Sweet 22 is a manual focus lens. As there are no electrical connections between the lens and the camera, the camera may not immediately detect the lens and it’s usually necessary to dip into the camera’s menu to set it to shoot without a lens.
As the aperture is fixed, the single ring on the Sweet 22’s barrel is for focusing. This ring has a smooth, easy movement with a short focus throw (the degree of movement to takes it from the closest to the furthest focus point).
I’ve used the Lensbaby Sweet optics on many occasions in the Composer Pro II or Spark 2.0, and it took me a while to get used to the fact that the sweet spot with the Sweet 22 can’t be shifted away from the centre of the frame. It means that the main subject needs to be at or close to the centre of the image, so you may have to rethink your composition a little. Given the simplicity of using the Lensbaby Sweet 22, that’s not a drama and before long you’re thinking in-tune with the lens.
Aided by the magnified view and focus peaking that’s available on modern mirrorless lenses, you can focus the Sweet 22 very quickly. The sharp areas look good, but don’t pixel-peep expecting the same level of sharpness that you get from a top-flight lens. The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is a creative lens designed to produce something a little different.
The results look particularly good when there are highlights towards the edges of the frame because they are stretched towards the corners, giving an almost zoom-burst effect that adds impact and draw attention to your subject.
The stretched bokeh effect can inject impact to images. This was shot on the Sony A7R IV
The soft areas add a dreamy look to some images. This was shot on the Sony A7R IV
I focussed on the word ‘Work’ for this image of some steps. This was shot on the Sony A7R IV
Shooting from a bridge with such limited depth of field hae given this image a slight miniaturised effect. This was shot on the Sony A7R IV
The focus was on the end of this tunnel and the image was captured as the person walked into the sharp zone. This was shot on the Sony A7R IV
The heron painting here is just inside the sharp zoon without being smack in the middle of the frame. This was shot on the Sony A7R IV
The sweet spot of focus and rapid fall off in sharpness helps your subject to stand out from the surroundings
This image was shot with the Lensbaby Sweet 22 on the Sony A7R IV
If you’ve never used a Lensbaby lens before, the Sweet 22 makes a great introduction. It’s easy to use and produces images with bags of impact and an obvious effect. Experienced Lensbaby users may also enjoy the simplicity of use and the extremity of the effect. It’s a great choice of lens when you fancy shooting something a bit different, your creativity is running low or you need to jump-start your mojo.
