There's a certain thrill to capturing non-traditional footage with a camera. Rather than having all the time in the world to add special effects after the fact---or tapping a single button in Instagram---you have to nail it on the spot. Lensbaby makes a bunch of stunt lenses built for the task, adding cool effects to your shots as they're being taken.
A few years ago, the company came out with a variety pack of lenses curated specifically for filmmakers. Dubbed the Movie Maker’s Kit, it offered a bunch of optical gadgets to let you add blur, fish-eye effects, soft-focus, and other looks.
The company has released new options since then, so now there’s a sequel kit to capture more kinds of effects. The Movie Maker’s Kit II will complement the first installment rather than overlap with it. The main draw with this package is tilt-shift effects: There are four ball-and-socket lenses in the kit, with a variety of focal lengths and a couple of different visual styles.
The kit comes with two Composer Pro IIs, the base units for Lensbaby’s swappable-optics system. There’s one for the PL mount used by Arri, Blackmagic, and other cinema cameras, as well as one for the EF mount used by Canon’s DSLRs. Those base units accommodate four optics included in the kit, making it a modular system for both types of cameras.
Those optics consist of a 35mm/F2.5 “Sweet 35” lens, a 50mm/F2.5 “Sweet 50” lens, a 50mm/F3.2 “Edge 50” lens, and an 80mm/F2.8 “Edge 80” lens. The big difference between the two flavors is that the Sweet series produces a central point of focus surrounded by a dreamy blur, while the Edge series is a better option for creating crazy miniature effects.
The whole package will ship in September, and it comes in a sturdy carrying case made by Nanuk. It’s priced at $2,500, with much of the cost going toward the $1,300 PL-mount version of the Composer Pro II. The rest of the lenses cost around $1,200 combined, so you’re basically getting the additional EF mount and a carrying case for free.
If you’re looking for a similar sampler of lenses for still photography---or you don’t need the pricey PL mount---good news! You can save a lot of scratch by getting the $700 Composer Pro II System Kit, which also works with Nikon F-mount DSLRs.
