I should point out that I messed up the coding in yesterday’s post. You should go to that post again to see the corrections in the code that allow you to see Kim’s and Shannon’s submissions.

My Christmas present to my self was a Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f/1.8 lens. I was going to do a whole thing on it, but I have owned if for going on 5 months now and I think it is just time to share the first few pictures I took with it.

Rather than going into any of those technical details, here is a description from the Lensbaby website:

A manual focus portrait lens from Lensbaby that’s dreamy and delicate — or tack sharp and subtly vintage at 85mm.

Create soulful portraits with our Velvet 85 art lens. Compose impressionistic masterpieces with a velvety glow at bright apertures, straight out of camera. Use darker apertures to bypass glow and make images with a crisp, film-like aesthetic.

Building on the strengths of our bestselling Velvet 56 lens, Velvet 85 combines lustrous skin tones with the added compression and buttery smooth bokeh found in the best 85mm portrait lenses. Use its macro capabilities to capture significant details with new life.

The Velvet 85 design features a solid heft and smooth, dampened manual focus.

Here are the first few pictures I took with it:

I actually have two other lenses I purchased around the same time. Those lenses are more practical, but I’ll discuss them at some point in the future.