Getting Prehistoric with the Edge 80 Optic

There are many things about the Composer Pro and Edge 80 optic that take us back to the fundamental roots of photography. But Edge 80 can take us back even further - back to the Jurassic. As the Marketing Manager at Lensbaby, I love that it's my job to promote the cool tools & toys we make - and I truly enjoy coming up with fun and unexpected ways to use them in my own work.

My boyfriend, our dog and I hike nearly every weekend. So much hiking can turn even the breathtakingly beautiful Pacific Northwest into something a little mundane. Looking for ideas to spice up my hike shoots, I decided to bring some dinosaurs and my Composer Pro with Edge 80, and a whole new (ridiculously fun and a bit silly) project was hatched.

Typically, shooting with a selective focus optic like the Edge 80 from a high vantage point, looking at a scene down below, can create a miniature look. Placing the toy dinosaurs into a setting that alters the scale of a scene, combined with the Edge 80 blur, can create a similar effect.

The rich-colored, vibrant rainforest surrounding Portland made for the perfect dinosaur habitat. Hollowed-out trees turned into caves. Ferns grew into huge, leafy trees. Small clumps of weeds became great, grassy plains. People I met on the trails may have looked at me funny and asked, "Is that your dinosaur, or your dog's?" but I can assure you, I was having WAY more fun than they were having.

Most of these images were shot at f/4 or f/5.6 with a healthy amount of tilt to exaggerate the blur. I also utilized the close-focus extension capability of the Edge 80 Optic. Through trial and error, I learned to avoid even the tiniest drop of direct sunlight on the dinosaurs themselves, as it broke the illusion of the scene by accentuating their plastic appearance. And - as some of these little guys have their name and logo emblazoned front and center - I made sure to place that part in the blur of the image. What's the most unlikely thing you've photographed with your Lensbaby? Tell us about it in the comments of this post, and the first 5 people to respond will get a copy of the brand-new, hot-off-the-press book, Lensbaby: Bending Your Perspective (2nd edition) by Corey Hilz!