Spring is emerging here in the Northern Hemisphere, new buds and shoots are sprouting, the temperature is gradually increasing and I’ve even seen a few bees beginning their busy work. It’s the perfect time to year to start spending more time outside enjoying our fascinating natural world and capturing a little of that beauty.
Nature photography provides us an opportunity to have a break from everything else, to put down our phones and focus on the intricate details and stunning colours. To slow down and look all around us, to notice the pretty light and interesting textures before considering how best to create our images. Lensbaby offers so many creative tools for making these images unique and the brand new OMNI shapes expansion pack adds further endless possibilities to your tool belt.
These accessories can be either handheld or mounted to the OMNI ring that screws onto your lens, and there are advantages to either method. When hand holding you have complete flexibility in quickly moving the tool around trying all possible angles and orientations. It can take some practice however to hold the camera single-handedly, compose your shot and nail focus on your subject. It’s especially tricky with heavier lenses and if you have weak wrists or unsteady hands you might find the mount preferable. Using the ring to mount the OMNI means you have both hands available to support the camera, change settings, find focus etc… You could also add more than one OMNI at a time.
This new OMNI collection offers a wide variety of shapes and colours that add all kinds of creative effects to you images in-camera. From flares, light leaks, colour splashes and rainbows to shaped bokeh, lines and textures, even reflections and the illusion of a double exposure image. Experimenting with all the different tools, I have found that they work best in strong light. In lower light situations the effect might be more subtle or you might find there isn’t much of an effect at all. You also want to be using a wide aperture (typically f4.5 or wider) so that the actual tool doesn’t appear in your image, just the effects from it.
Within the genre of nature photography I’ve found this set to be fantastic for adding interest at the edges of my image, framing my subject or disguising the ugly surroundings of my pretty subject. In addition to holding them at an angle to my lens, I’ve also found fun effects from holding the shape flat against the lens and shooting through the shaped holes. This creates beautiful background textures, much like the creative bokeh aperture discs.
I hope you’ll enjoy getting outside and exploring this new expansion pack as much as I have, creating unique images and adding that extra splash of magic. Take your time to enjoy the beauty you see and experimenting with all the possibilities. Remember it doesn’t even matter if you don’t come away with any images you love (especially when starting out with new kit - it can take some practice!), the important part is to have fun and reap the benefits of time spent in our amazing natural world.
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Abi Coop
Hello! I’m Abi, from the UK where I live with my husband and two daughters. I have a PhD in Cosmology and for 9 years have written crosswords for puzzle magazines, so as you can tell I’m not one for doing “normal” things and this continues in my photography. I have a passion for freelensing, Lensbabys, double exposures, and all other kinds of creative techniques. I love to try out new things and experiment. I’m not tied to any particular genre, but in whatever I shoot my style shines through. My images are pretty and ethereal, with light, blur and colour used to tell my stories.
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