Twist 28: A Journey Unfolding

After months of beta testing the Twist 28, it’s finally time to share my thoughts! Yay! As a, mostly, macro photographer I tried hard to use this Petzval-inspired lens, not only, for macro, but also for some landscape and even some pet portraits! My goal was to not compare it to other lenses but, instead, to see how I liked it while being true to my own style! However, I did use my experience with the Twist 60 to understand the basic concept of a Twist lens. The Twist 60 is not an optic I reach for all the time. I use it, with purpose, for those times when I want that twist and I have the specular highlights to create the swirl of bokeh it’s known for. Many times I use that swirl is for framing for my subject. 

I received the Twist 28 in the fall and took it right outside! I knew I had the fall colors to play with and I jumped right right in. Flowers were still growing in the garden and there was beautiful light coming through the trees! The wide angle allowed me to get in close and show off the beautiful swirly bokeh of my background! Tack sharp focus on my subjects was easy to achieve while softening everything behind my subject thanks to the fixed f/3.5 aperture! Striving for perfection was not the point just yet. Trying to understand the capabilities of the lens was my goal. 

Next up was a pet portrait session! I grabbed a cooperative labrador retriever and found some colorful leaves of small shrub. My goal was test out how far away I needed to be from my background to get that swirl. There was limited room to move around and a leash to consider, but to my delight my pup was only about 2’ from the shrub and I was about 4’ from her. The distance from subject to background was much closer than I expected The results were better than I anticipated as well! I crafted some beautiful, colorful fall framing! The next time I hope to have someone who can help with the dog so I can worry more about my compositions and less about a dog running away! 

Going down my checklist, landscape photography was next. I tried this a few different ways. I shot a small section of detail within the landscape up close and let the background fall into blur and swirl. I also shot it like a more typical landscape and picked something about 1/3 of the way into my frame and focused on that. The results were more impressionistic and more importantly they meshed with my style! Telling stories and evoking emotion were becoming more consistent with each location I scouted. I was really beginning to enjoy this 28mm lightweight lens!

Macro was the focus of most of my learning on this lens! This lens focuses at about 9” from your subject, but as with any lens you can change that by using extension tubes and/or close up filters. I tried with both! I love the blur I got from using the lens this way! Tack sharp in the middle and stunning with soft blur around the edges! I was in love with the effect! Lensbaby sells macro filters. If you don’t find them on the website, check back. They are probably just out of stock! 

Shooting the lights of the holiday season was pretty much as I expected it would be! Lots of fun! Lots of swirly bokeh! I am drawn to movement in my images and the Twist 28 did not disappoint!

There is some vignetting around the edges with this lens. You can see more or less depending on how well lit your frame is. In images where I found it a little less desirable I corrected in post processing or in some cases I cropped a bit. Sometimes that cropping helped to attain a composition that more in line with the rule of thirds but I didn’t always feel that was necessary! There are times when I intentionally shot knowing I was going to crop and times when I shot both a centered crop and an off-centered one. Having choices to pick from gives a greater chance of coming up with keepers! You will need to decide what style works best for you.

It didn’t take long to realize how versatile this lens can be! To be honest I wasn’t surprised at all, though. Consistently getting the swirl with the right the elements in my composition, while at the same time creating beautiful macro images that had no swirl at all by adding an extension tube or a macro filter made me very happy! I love when lenses have more than one purpose! Versatile is a word I use a lot to describe my Lensbaby lenses! 

I am continuing to learn about the Twist 28 and I pull it out more often than I originally thought I would! The price point of this lens is exceptionally reasonable and worth the investment to keep me entertained! I love being creative with my work. It keeps me from getting bored with the same images all the time. It challenges me to look at possibilities differently.

In a recent presentation I gave for a camera club, I tried to encourage the participants to just play with these lenses. I told them to ask themselves, “What if…?” As a former Ambassador and now a Trailblazer I hear a lot questions that start with those words. As a former educator I like to put that question right back to the person who asked. “What if you tried it? What’s the worst that can happen? What’s the best thing that can happen?” I like to encourage people not to lean on my thoughts too much. If we don’t have the same work flow or interests there is a good chance our results will differ and that’s a good thing! Your light is different. Your subjects will be different. The angle of light is different. The distance to your subject or your background might be different. All of this to say, your results can be different and to varying degrees! 

Discoveries are made by people who experiment! I challenged those camera club participants, and I want to challenge you to allow yourself the room to play, to experiment, to try different lenses, techniques, compositions and find what makes you happy! Then come back and tell us about it!