Lensbaby has two distinct series of interchangeable optics for its swappable lens system—Edge and Sweet. Edge lenses are designed to be sharp from corner to corner, so you can tilt the plane of focus using a Composer Pro II. The Sweet line takes a different approach, one that harkens back to the earliest Lensbaby releases. Only the center of the lens is sharp, with the rest of the frame delivering trippy, blurred results. The Sweet 80 ($199.95) lives up to its promise, and comes in at a portrait-freindly focal length that full-frame photographers will appreciate. It's a solid addition to your Lensbaby kit if you like the Sweet look and want it in a focal length that's longer than the other two options, the Sweet 35 and Sweet 50.

Design

Like other swappable optics from Lensbaby, you can't use the Sweet 80 ( at Amazon) on its own. Instead it fits into one of the company's special effects lenses—the current model is the Composer Pro II. The outer lens supports tilt to change the angle at which light hits the sensor, and is also used to adjust focus. The Sweet 80 has an aperture control ring, and a front element that can be pulled out from the barrel to focus up close.

It measures 1.9 by 1.9 inches (HD), weighs 5.6 ounces, and supports 46mm front filters. The front element juts out of the Composer II when it's installed, and will do the same if you still have an older lens like the Muse. Like others in the Edge and Sweet series, it's too heavy to be used with the lightweight, entry-level Spark.

The aperture is f/2.8 wide open, but can be narrowed all the way down to f/16 in full-stop increments. The ring turns with some resistance, which can make adjustments a bit problematic if the lens is focused toward infinity—that is, when the Sweet 80 is as far into the Composer Pro II's barrel as it goes. In that state your fingers can only grip a small portion of the aperture ring. It's more comfortable to adjust when the lens is focused up close, as you'll have a larger area of the ring to grip and turn.

The f-stop controls how much light enters, and also how large the sweet spot of focus is. You'll want to shoot at f/2.8 to make the effect as pronounced as it can be, and stop down a bit for less extreme shots, like the landscape above that I shot at f/5.6.

The minimum focus distance is 22 inches, which is solid for an 80mm lens. You will have to pull forward on the lens to move to the close focusing range, and push it back in to focus to infinity. This isn't the first time we've seen the push-pull option on a Lensbaby optic; the Edge 80 has the same mechanism.

Conclusions

Lensbaby has moved beyond just offering selective focus lenses over the past few years, adding options like the Twist 60 and Velvet 85 to the mix. But it hasn't forgotten where it started, capturing photos with a small spot of focus that can be moved around the frame in conjunction with a tilting lens. The Sweet 80 is a solid choice for full-frame shooters with an eye for portraiture, but I think that APS-C camera owners might find its field of view a bit too tight. They'll be better served with the Sweet 50 or Sweet 35. If you love the idea of changing the plane of focus using a tilting Lensbaby, but want images with a flat field of focus, look at the Edge series instead.

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