Shooting Lensbaby’s Velvet 85mm Lens

Today’s Post by Mark Toal

You know how sometimes you just pick up a lens and you immediately want to own it? That’s how I feel about the Lensbaby Velvet 85mm. If you think Lensbaby makes toy lenses then you need to check out the build quality and features of the Velvet 85 and my other favorite Lensbaby lens, the Circular Fisheye.

I recently had a chance to try the Velvet 85 with my Panasonic Lumix GH5 for a week. The Velvet 85 is designed for full frame cameras, but also comes in a MFT lens mount. I used the Nikon version along with a Nikon to Micro Four-Thirds adapter.

The great thing about the Velvet 85 is that the soft effect is the strongest with the lens aperture wide open and the lens gets sharper as you stop down the aperture. The affect is very pronounced as you look through the viewfinder. It’s also works as a macro lens with a minimum focusing distance of 9.5 inches which is very close for an 85mm lens.

Below are sample images that I took with the Velvet 85 on the Lumix GH5. For other examples and more information check out the Lensbaby web site at https://lensbaby.com/product/velvet-85/