Lensbaby has launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring its sweet-spot, selective focus photography to the iPhone. The LM-10 Sweet Spot Lens is a smartphone lens designed to produce images with the same classic Lensbaby look – a sweet-spot of focus surrounded by gradually increasing blur – as the firm's creative effects DSLR and mirrorless lenses.
The Sweet Spot Lens is the first Lensbaby offering for smartphones and consists of a small anodized aluminum body lens barrel, which attaches over a camera lens with magnets and an adhesive-backed stainless steel ring. Inside there are a series of optics which give users the ability to shoot with the signature dreamy Lensbaby look, and the lens gives a focal length equivalent of 17 mm on most phones.
Because the Sweet Spot Lens has magnets on both ends, it can also be used in conjunction with other magnetic mobile lenses or filters. This will be good news for dedicated phone-photographers who already have fish-eye, telephoto, macro or polarizing attachments for their smartphone and want to maximize their in-camera creative options.
While the creative focus lens can be mounted and used on a number of smartphones, it's been designed with the iPhone in mind, specifically the 4s, 5, 5s, and 5c. As such, a companion iOS app will be available which flips the image to appear the correct way up… the complexity of the optics means the image would otherwise appear upside down.
The app can also be used to lock a focus point, apply filters and use features including exposure lock, spot and evaluative metering. There's also the ability to move the sweet spot of focus around the frame while composing the image. However, it's not quite like using a Lensbaby on a DSLR. Here you're essentially using a live cropping tool, and dragging the crop to move the sweet spot around the image.
A pledge of US$50 is currently needed to secure one of the lenses. If funding is successful, the lenses should start shipping in July, and will come with two adhesive rings, a plastic front and rear cap and a micro fiber bag.
Check out the Lensbaby LM-10 Sweet Spot Lens Kickstarter video below.
Source: Kickstarter