In part two of this series I’m going to introduce another Lensbaby creative product - the Omni Creative Filter System.
They are special-effects crystals, wands and filters designed to be held in front of your camera lens. These wands can add reflections, color shifts, prismatic effects, flares, and other unique distortions to your photos.
They can be hand-held or you can use the magnetic ring and magnetic arms that come with the system to hold them in front of your camera lens to reflect and refract the light coming into the lens.
The magnetic filter rings can be purchased in two different sizes to suit lenses with smaller or larger filter sizes.
These can be used with your normal lenses, you’re not limited to using them with Lensbaby lenses, in fact I have used them more with my standard lenses than with my Lensbaby lenses.
The majority of my Canon lenses are 77mm filter thread, so I purchased the large size ring (see figure 1a). I can use the 46-77mm step-up ring mentioned and pictured in last month’s article to attach them to my Lensbaby Optics.
Fig 1 - The Omni Filter Ring
You’ll notice in figure 1a that there are two magnets that come with the filter ring, these can be moved around the filter ring to any position. The wands and filters can be magnetically attached to these directly, or for more flexibility, and to move them further away from the camera, you can attach the two magnetic arms to the magnets, and then attach the wands and filters to the magnetic arms.
The magnet/ball joints that connect the arms to the magnets on the ring, and the wands to the magnetic arms, make it easy to move them around into a good position. Figure 1b shows two wands attached to the front of my camera using the filter ring and two magnetic arms.
There are a number of different wands and filters available in a number of different sets, many of them are glass / crystal wands, figure 2 shows some of them. You’ll see they come in many different shapes.
Fig 2 - Omni crystals and prisms
You can also get small rainbow and lumi films, reflector sheets and colour gels that attach via a little wand filter holder (see figure 3).
Fig 3 - Omni Rainbow and Lumi Films and Colour Gels
My main tip with these is just to experiment!
Some other tips are;
- Bright light or strong light sources in the dark are great for these
- A longer focal length lens (50-100mm) rather than wide-angle lens will work better
- My favourites are the Stretch glass and Seahorse crystal (highlighted these in Figure 2)
- Bright light or strong light sources in the dark are great for these
- A longer focal length lens (50-100mm) rather than wide-angle lens will work better
- My favourites are the Stretch glass and Seahorse crystal (highlighted these in Figure 2)
The Omni Creative Filter system are a wonderful way to shoot something unique and different – Shoot Extraordinary!
Check out the image gallery, featuring some of my photos as well as some from Lensbaby ambassador and a good friend of mine, Judi May.
If you’d like to watch a short YouTube video that does a good job of showing the range of items and effects available, try this one
For more inspiration you can check out Judi’s lovely photography on Instagram @judilipinski – you’ll find a link in her bio there to her Flickr as well where there are even more lovely images.
Out of the Blue - Judi May
Blowin' in the Wind - Judi May
Laneway Reflections - Andrew Haysom
Army Reflected - Andrew Haysom
Horses - Andrew Haysom
The jewels of the garden - Judi May
All about that blur, 'bout that blur - Judi May
The many faces of Cafe Au Lait - Judi May
This article was first published in the November 2024 issue of Artists Down Under magazine.