- I don't know if you guys are like me
where sometimes you kind of just get bored
of the same old image and you wanna do something
different, you wanna spice it up a little bit.
Well, a really good way to do that is lens effects.
I'll explain what I mean by lens effects after the intro.
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So I was hanging out yesterday downtown Toronto,
actually it's an island just outside of downtown Toronto,
with Alen Palander and his friend Brody
and they were filming a video,
and I was kind of just, you know, playing around
with some different lens effects and I actually tried out
two different lens effects which changed the look
of the image drastically, and they're a little bit different
but also quite similar at the same time.
So we're gonna look at two different types
of lens effects that you can do.
And for these lens effects I was using two different types
of lenses, this Lensbaby Sol 45
and this Helios four four two.
The first look you can only really get
with these kinds of specialty lenses from Lensbaby.
Lensbaby makes a whole bunch of different types of like,
they're kind of quirky, different, very specialty lenses,
you don't wanna be using them all the time
but they're really interesting.
And the second effect, you can actually do with any lens
but there's a specific reason why I chose
this Helios four four two to do this effect,
which I will explain a little bit later.
So the Sol 45 is a really easy way to get this cool,
little distorted look.
Essentially it's blurring the edges
and then you're also getting
these really interesting looking sun flares.
And how it's doing all this is you mount it
to your camera and then you can actually
tilt this lens around a little bit.
And depending how you tilt it, how you turn it,
it creates a different blur effect,
but it's blurring the outsides, kind of like a vignette
but it's a blur and you can change which part
is in focus and which part is being blurred out.
It has these interesting little blades
that you can move around to get different effects.
Basically they just affect the sunlight,
really harsh light that's coming in.
So you can play around with those to get kind of
different sun flares, different effects
with really harsh lights like the sun or a bright light.
And the other lens effect that I was doing
is with this Helios four four two
but it's called lens whacking or freelensing,
and you might be wondering, what the heck is lens whacking,
let me show you guys.
So instead of having, you know, your traditional setup here
of camera and lens mounted to the camera,
we're gonna take off this lens and take off this cap.
(lens cap drops)
Good to go,
and we're not gonna actually mount this lens to the camera,
we're just gonna hold it just outside,
kind of holding it there in place
kind of where it should be,
but we're just doing it with our hands, no mount.
And you can get some really cool effects with this.
Not only do you get kind of the same effect
as with this Lensbaby,
it's a little bit harder to do it,
but you get that same kind of blurry edges look,
but then you also get some light leaks
because light is coming in through the sides
into the censor, so you're getting some light leaks
and then this interesting kind of,
it's not a tilt-shift effect but it's kind of like
a circular blur in different parts of the image.
It's probably better that you just watch the footage
and you see what I mean.
Now a couple of things if you're planning
on doing this lens whacking, freelensing.
One is that it helps to have a smaller lens
than the size of your camera mount so you can
actually move it in and out,
and the reason for this is,
first of all be careful with this,
you don't wanna damage anything inside your camera.
The reason is you actually need to be moving the lens
in and out to focus the image.
So you can't actually use the focus ring,
you have to move it in and out to get things focused,
so it's a little bit tricky,
it takes a little bit of practice.
So what I recommend is you put the lens on infinity focus.
Infinity, the distance, put it to infinity,
and then don't use too shallow a depth of field,
use maybe like an F like 3.5 or 4 even.
Play around, and especially if when you're practicing,
because it is really tricky to get the focus
and to keep the focus because if you move it
just a little bit it's gonna go out of focus again,
and if you move yourself or your subject moves,
you have to kind of play around and get it back in focus,
which is also a cool effect
when it's kind of going in and out of focus,
but it is tricky.
So both of these effects are really cool,
they're kind of, they're different kinds of looks
but they're kind of in the same sphere of looks I would say,
kind of these lens distortion,
lens effects I'm gonna call them.
And I'd say the Sol 45 doesn't always look super organic
so that's kind of the downside, but the upside
is that it's way easier to use
because it does actually mount to your camera
and then you're just moving this around
to create that effect.
But there were times when it just didn't look as organic
as something like the freelensing,
which is really organic, but it is a lot harder
to get the look that you're going for, if that makes sense.
It's actually, it's really hard even just to keep
things stable because not only do you have to
stabilize the camera but also the lens.
If both are moving, it looks really shaky
so that's one of the really hard things
with lens whacking, freelensing.
The focusing is tough and then the light spill,
trying to control that light spill
if there's like a bright light coming in through the side
it can create some really heavy light leaks
and it's just too much,
so you're having to balance out a lot of things
and trying to get a cool shot all at the same time.
I think the big difference between the two looks
of freelensing and then using this Sol 45 Lensbaby
is that with this freelensing you get the light leaks
you don't get any light leaks with this Sol 45,
so that's probably the biggest difference,
and yeah I would say that's the biggest difference
between these two different effects,
so if you don't want any light leaks or any spilling,
it's a lot trickier but you can get away with kind of
covering things up a little bit
and then you're not gonna have much light coming in,
so you're getting a very similar look to this
except without these lens flare,
adjuster,
customizer things.
Also I'm not a huge fan of the color of the light leaks,
it's usually like a purplish color, at least on Canons,
I don't know why that is but I'm not a huge fan
of that color I wish it was kind of like,
maybe an orangey color or something like that.
Again you could try to change the symposium
but it's pretty tricky because it's all over
and it's all over the skin tones and everything
and yeah you don't wanna mess with it too much.
So both are really cool effects, a little bit different,
but I thought I'd give you guys a few tips
on some things that I've learned
to make this a lot easier for you guys,
if you plan on, you know spicing your footage up
with some lens effects.
First off I would say play around with light sources,
especially something like the sun.
Just play around with that a lot.
I found I was getting some really cool lens flares
with the Sol 45, and then with the lens whacking,
especially with the light leaks coming in from the sides
but even also the lens flares on there.
There's a lot to play around with.
These effects can go overboard really quickly
so again, remember to kind of control them with your hand
or have somebody else kind of shade or block the light
from different angles, wherever it's coming from.
Yeah, play around with the light sources.
You can get some really cool effects with different
lights like the sun.
Number two I would say practice the focusing part
on both cases but especially with lens whacking.
The focus especially is really hard on lens whacking
it's kind of going in and out the whole time
and it's hard to keep perfect.
So you need, need, need to practice this
because you're literally focusing by moving the lens
in and out and it can be really tricky so,
take your time, practice that cause it's a bit tricky
in the beginning.
Number three I would say keep things stable.
One of the big dangers with this is that you're kind of
distracted, you're looking at all these cool effects
that you're doing and you're not realizing that you're
also shaking the camera at the same time,
especially with freelensing.
Because you're having to stabilize both the camera
and the lens at the same time and kind of keep them
together, it can get shaky real fast,
so make sure you're trying to stabilize things
as much as possible.
Number four I would say leave yourself enough time.
I was noticing with a lot of these shots,
normally I would get them way faster
but because I was using the Sol 45 or freelensing
it was taking a lot longer to get the shot that I wanted to.
So you're having to think not only the normal stuff,
you know shutter speed, iso, your composition,
lighting, expo, all that stuff,
you're also having to think about the effect
and focusing and all these different things
so there's a lot going on so leave yourself enough time.
This is not one of those things that you can just kind of
rush in and just run and gun all the time,
it takes a little bit more time.
You're gonna need to set things up a little bit
and essentially stage things a little bit more
because you need people to stay still
in order for you to get the focus.
And lastly I would say do not go overboard with this.
It's really easy to start doing these lens effects
and you're like oh this looks insane, this is so cool,
it's so different, nobody else has this kind of footage.
And then every single one of your shots
is some crazy lens flare, light leaks all over the place.
And it gets old really quickly,
so I would say, don't go overboard with this.
I like a lot of these looks that are coming out,
but use them just for, kind of like, here and there
just like, you know have some normal shots
and then maybe like a close up and then you're lens whacking
and it spices things up a little bit
but don't go overboard with this look.
It gets out of control, out of hand really fast
so just sprinkle them in but don't do this all the time
cause it gets a little distracting, a little bit crazy,
yeah, unless you're going for a very specific look
like a dream look or something like that
then, yeah it's a great thing to use
for that whole sequence but other than that I would say
don't go overboard.
So next time you get bored and you wanna spice things up
a little bit try some lens effects.
Maybe, you know try this Lensbaby or one of the other
Lensbaby specialty lenses or just grab any lens
and try to do some freelensing, lens whacking
and you know spice up your footage a little bit.
Also if you didn't know,
you can actually make any lens into a macro lens
using this freelensing technique.
It's not easy, again, because you're having to focus things,
but when you pop off the lens like this
it actually becomes a macro lens,
so just something for you to know
if you need to do some macro shots
and you don't have a macro lens then just take off the lens
and pull it out a little bit.
Alright, that's it for this one.
I'll link the lenses down below,
and I think it's time for you to get out
and go film something now.
Learn, make, repeat.
You've now learned so it's time to make something
and then repeat that process.
Alright guys I'll see you guys in the next one
and I'm gonna go do some more freelensing.
Bye.
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