At a glance
£179 £222 with case and ND filter
Standalone lens
22mm focal length
Covers full-frame but compatible with smaller sensors
Fixed f/3.5 aperture
46mm filter thread
Manual focus
The Lensbaby Sweet 22 has a focal length of 22mm and it produces an image that covers a full-frame sensor. But it can also be used on APS-C format cameras with the appropriate mount, providing an equivalent focal length of around 33mm. Lensbaby makes the lens for mirrorless cameras and it’s available in Canon RF, Nikon Z, Fujifilm X, and Sony FE mounts, plus the L-mount used by Leica, Sigma and Panasonic.
Setting up for using a Lensbaby lens
Because Lensbaby lenses have no electrical contacts, the camera doesn’t know that a lens is mounted. As a result, you may need to search your camera’s menu for a setting that allows it to shoot without a lens. Once that’s done, you just need to focus the lens manually and shoot as normal.
As usual for Lensbaby, the Sweet 22 is a manual-focus lens with no electrical contacts. It’s constructed from 4 elements arranged in 2 groups and the round aperture is fixed at f/3.5. Consequently, the only control on the lens is the ridged focus ring, which moves smoothly through around 90° of rotation. Although focus peaking can help, I find it best to customise a button on the camera to enlarge the image in the viewfinder to ease focusing.
This story is from the July 02, 2024 edition of Amateur Photographer.
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This story is from the July 02, 2024 edition of Amateur Photographer.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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