Review of the Lensbaby Sweet 22 lens – part of a new photography series on the blog.
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is a fun lens for mirrorless cameras. A great aid to my creativity, it encouraged me to search for different images, utilising a different mindset. And crucially, the thing that prompted me to actually buy the lens, is that it is relatively inexpensive. If it had cost more, I wouldn’t have bought it – and I would have missed out!
The biggest worry about buying the Sweet 22 was that it might be too ‘gimmicky’ and end up sitting in my bag, or on a shelf being unused once that gimmick wore off. But at only £179 (from Wex) it was worth a punt – and I am so glad I took the plunge!
As the name suggests, the Sweet 22 is a 22mm focal-length lens with one central spot of focus – the sweet spot – and the rest of the glass dissolves into a blur. Depending on your subject and background, that blur can be aesthetically beautiful and help focus attention (pun intended) on the subject. Lensbaby describes the blur as ‘creamy’ and I would agree with that description! The blur is created by the curvature of the lens and its fixed f3.5 aperture. This is the first time I’ve used a Lensbaby, and my first too for a fixed-aperture lens.
The key to using the lens is to get that sweet spot focus – it needs to be sharp. It’s a manual focus lens. I was using it on my Sony A6000. After the first day’s test drive, I opted to use the Focus Magnifier facility, so I could hit that sharpness in the centre more often.
With a fixed focal length of 22mm (equivalent to about 35mm on my APS-C camera) and a fixed-aperture of f3.5 aperture, I used my shutter speed and ISO range dials to control exposure, which is easy to do on the A6000. This makes using the lens simple. Concentration can be given to achieving the sweet spot via the focus ring, with composing the image being the main enjoyable activity. What is in focus? How does that background look? What happens when I move position, angle or perspective? Very soon I stopped thinking about the camera and focused on composition and creating images. On my second day of using the lens, I just couldn’t wait for nighttime and to visit a local industrial site where I knew the lights would be perfect for bokeh creation. Yes, defocus that sweet spot and you have a dreamy bokeh-making lens!
The Sweet 22 offers a wide-angle viewpoint, but the lens is also good close-up to a subject. You can focus up to 12cm according to the specifications from Lensbaby, but I seemed to be able to focus a little closer than that. This makes it ideal for flower photography, portraits (faces, head and shoulders) and other close-up subjects.
The lens is fun to use as I suspected. You start looking at the world around you with new ‘sweet-eyes’. Your mind becomes open to lots more creative interpretations of otherwise everyday scenes. I think this is a wonderful lens to spur the imagination. In my opinion, those photographers feeling in a rut about their image-making – we’ve all been there – would certainly benefit from a bit of playtime with the Sweet 22.
More at: https://lensbaby.com/products/sweet-22-kit
For Canon RF, Nikon Z, Fuji X, Sony E and L mount.
Images captured with the Lensbaby Sweet 22 lens.
