Freelensing

I use the technique often, but I never had heard the term freelensing until recently.  Freelensing is where you hold a lens up to a camera and snap away, without ever mounting it securely to the camera (ie by way of the mount or an adapter).

By holding the lens freehand in front of the camera there are many techniques that can be replicated, such as tilt, shift and macro.   It’s worth it to Google ‘freelensing’ to see different shots that can be achieved.  Flickr’s ‘Freelensing’ group is especially worth a visit too.

Holding the lens in front of the camera with a gap in between greatly reduces contrast, but creates rather bizarre effects in the process.  Here’s one shot where I held a Schneider enlarging lens about 1 inch away from the camera, as I wanted to guess the distance required for focal points.  The image is quite unusual, especially when you look at what is and isn’t in focus, and it creates a very dreamy and old fashioned feel to the photo.

Sony NEX-3 & Schneider-Krauznach  50mm f4 Comparon enlarging lens

You can also add extension tubes to create a macro effect, and that is exactly what I did here when shooting orchids on one of my very first posts on this blog with a D700 and Carl Zeiss 50mm f2.8 M42.  Different amounts of Nikon extension tubes create varying macro effects.

My next challenge is to test the Schneider enlarging lens on the NEX to see what it really is capable of.