What you see here is an example of the Lensbaby blurry, medicated, dreamy (nightmare?) imagery possible when you want to reject reality and experiment. Manual focus, fixed aperture, and gloriously imperfect. I believe this particular photo came from a Lensbaby Trio adapted to my ff Nikon Z6. Images like this are supposedly love/hate… with my spouse definitely falling into the later camp. Meanwhile, I love a bit of distortion in the morning.
Why buy intentionally “bad” lenses?
You can spend a lot of money to buy nearly perfect autofocus lenses that make everything sharp. High contrast, every blemish in high definition. I have a few that come close to that in the right settings. And those lenses definitely have their roles. But when you want to let go and fish for scenes that deserve a center focus heavy blur, a swirly background, a miniturizing pitch, or even the obliteration of reality with a pinhole-style lens, you reach for vintage lenses and more contemporary Lensbaby mimics.
