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My Favorite Digital Camera Accessories at Photokina: the Lensbaby Composer

While there are certainly interesting cameras to discover at Photokina 2008, there are also a slew of digital camera accessories being shown off. My favorite comes from Lensbaby (formerly known as Lensbabies), which announced three new "selective focus" lenses for digital SLR users.
Written by Janice Chen, Inactive

While there are certainly interesting cameras to discover at Photokina 2008, there are also a slew of digital camera accessories being shown off. My favorite comes from Lensbaby (formerly known as Lensbabies), which announced three new "selective focus" lenses for digital SLR users.  I've been a longtime fan of Lensbaby (particularly the 2.0 version that came out last year) and the lenses have come a long way over the years.

Lensbaby Composer Looking significantly more polished than previous versions , the new Composer is based on a ball-and-socket design (rather than the original plastic bellows-like design)  making the control easier, smoother, and more precise.  The lens retains its position after you set it and rather than focusing the lens by squeezing it as the previous versions required, it actually sports a traditional barrel focusing ring. Another new design feature is that the Composer uses Lensbaby's new Optic Swap System, which allows you to switch among four different optics (double glass, single glass, plastic, and pinhole). The Composer ships with the double glass optic installed for $270. Additional optics can be purchased and swapped in for $35 each (or $95 for a boxed set of three).

The company also announced the Lensbaby Muse, which replaces the original Lensbaby and the Lensbaby 2.0 (and looks and functions much like them), but features the new Optic Swap System. It ships with either the double glass optic installed ($150) or the plastic optic installed ($100).  And finally, there's also the Lensbaby Control Freak, which replaces the Lensbaby 3G and also adds the Optic Swap system. It ships with the double glass optic installed for $270.

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