Velvet 56

LA County Arboretum Visit with my Lensbabies

Published: Sun, Aug 12, 2018
Written by GizellaN
2 Comments
Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Photography, Photowalk, Sweet 50 or 35, USA, Velvet 56
Tags: Burnside 35, LA County Arboretum, Lensbaby, Photography, Sweet 35, Velvet 56
Smile! You are on camera.
Yesterday I made a visit to the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia. It was another hot (89F) and sunny day, not the most ideal day for photography, but I still had a ton of fun. I took all four of my Lensbaby lenses and I ended up using three of them. I started out with the Burnside 35, switched over to the Velvet 56, and finally used the Sweet 35. Let me take you on a pictorial walk of the arboretum and also give you some of my thoughts about the lenses.
There are lots of different birds at the Arboretum, but what it is most famous for are the peacocks. There are over 200 peafowls leaving on the premises currently. These two were my favorite photographs of them from yesterday, and I prefer the Burnside photo over the Sweet 35.
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Same Subject, Different Lenses (Traveling Burnside Project)

Published: Sun, Jul 22, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Traveling Burnside Project, Photo Technique, Photography, Sweet 50 or 35, Velvet 56
Tags: Burnside 35, flower, Lensbaby, Photography, rose, Sweet 35, Velvet 56

About a week ago a friend of mine asked me if I could demonstrate the different looks various lenses can create of the same subject – including the Burnside. I picked a rose in my brother’s garden for my subject, and used four different lenses: Nikon 35mm, Lensbaby Burnside 35, LB Velvet 56, and LB Sweet 35. Please don’t expect this post to be a complete test of the 4 lenses; my goal was to give a good indication about the various looks you can achieve. I haven’t done any post processing on the following images. I will show a few images from each of the four lenses, then later in the post I’l put them next to each other for an easier comparison.

First, I’d like to show you three images I took with the Nikon 35mm lens, which is an automatic focus, prime lens. I got as close to the subject as I could, which was about 10″ (click to enlarge).

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Greeting Spring with Lensbaby Velvet 56

Published: Sat, Mar 31, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Velvet 56
Tags: flower, Lensbaby, Photography, Velvet 56
During my daughter’s Spring Break we visited my in-laws in Colorado. I was very excited about taking pictures of spring flowers; it used to be my long awaited activity after the long winter when we still lived there.
I got a bit disappointed, because there were barely any flowers blooming. What do you do when yo really want to take pictures of spring flowers but they are not in bloom yet? You buy two potted tulips at the store and gift them to you mother-in-law and her neighbor. But first, you take a few pictures of them. 🙂
The following images were all created with a Velvet 56 lens, and post-processed in Photoshop using Topaz and On1 plugins. Enjoy!
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Getting Up Close and Personal – with Flowers

Published: Sat, Mar 17, 2018
Written by GizellaN
No comments
Categories: Blog, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Velvet 56
Tags: flower, Lensbaby, macro, Photography, Velvet 56
Flowers are amazing, beautiful, and I adore them. I also love to get close to them with my camera and create images that show how I feel about them.
I have a new “toy” that allows me to do this more than anything else: a Lensbaby Velvet 56 lens. This lens has become my favorite after using it just for a few hours. I’ve always wanted to create dreamy, painterly looking floral images, and this lens helps me do that.
Since it has macro abilities, you can get as close as 5cm to your subject. And at that distance you’ll find all kinds of miracles. You can, for example separate one tiny, budding Geranium bloom from all the others and see it like this:

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