First Look at the Lensbaby Sol 45 Creative Lens

Lensbaby recently introduced the Sol 45 – this lens can not only tilt but it also has a few other “tricks” up its sleeve.

In the short video above Amy Moore (from Wex Photo and Video in the U.K.) gives a brief demo of the features and capabilities of the new Lensbaby Sol 45 and some of its interesting creative benefits.

So what is the Sol 45 – well, as the name implies this is a 45mm lens, it is fully manual, it comes in different mounts (Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Pentax K, Sony E, and Fuji X), it has a fixed f/3.5 aperture and its main feature is its ability to tilt when shooting.

The Sol 45 tilts 8.5° -this is nice but if you compare it to the Lensbaby  Composer Pro II that can tilt up to 15° – it is still quite limited. It does have a nice benefit though – you can lock the Sol 45 back to the center (and keep it locked so that the focus sweet spot is always in the center of the frame which is nice).

Another feature this lens has are the two bokeh blades that you can use to add texture to your bokeh (you can either use both or just one and they can help you get cool effects).

As with a lot of Lensbaby’s products, many photographers ask us what is the point – why get this lens if you can make at least some of these effects in post-production.  While that might be true (to a degree at least), we think that these lenses are all about the actual experience of shooting and getting the effect that you want in camera – right away. This might not be for everyone – but there is still a market for this otherwise Lensbaby would be out of business.

You can get the Lensbaby Sol 45 for about $200 on Amazon.

Bonus video: Lensbaby Sol 45 Lens Review + Tips and Tricks from Fotodiox 

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Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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