Shooting Challenge Freelensing Gallery 2

I visited a corn maze this past weekend and was taking pictures of all sorts of things and experimenting with freelensing, but these small pumpkins caught my eye and ended up being my best shot. Shot with a Canon T1i, 50mm f/1.8, ISO 100. -Aaron Lovell

Nikon D60, f/3.5, +2.3 step, ISO -200, 1/13 sec.

So I really didn't have the time this weekend to go out and take pictures (with exams etc... next week), so I decided to go with the macro option instead of the bigger tilt shift effect. I used an older 28mm lens on my D60 and started to take pictures of an tin ping-pong toy I have lying around. I wound up the toy and got a lot of cool motion blur pictures that would have been better in the motion blur challenge you guys had a little while ago. I took a ton of pictures some freehand and a few with a little tripod and just playing with the lens. The picture attached is one of my favorites. I like how both guys are in focus and half of the ping-pong table. -Adam Florence

Camera: Sony NEX-5 with an 18-55mm kit lens (1/25 sec/ISO 800)

With the deadline for this challenge just a few hours away I decided to test out this whole "freelensing" thing. I tried it on random stuff I had around my apartment but ultimate ended up in front of my bathroom mirror. I had a few pictures with some interesting lighting but I ended up liking this one the best. -Adam King

Camera: Zenit 122 Lens: 58mm F2 Film: Kodacolor ZR plus 200

I tremendously enjoyed this challenge. In this instance, I took the lens off and inverted it. The subject is part of an architectural model found at Dutch Design week. -Alexander Schuth

Shot was taken with a Canon 40D and a detached 28 - 105 mm Canon lens. It's a fancy invitation I got for my company's corporate awards. I was able to achieve a tilt shift and "Top Gear" effect by freelensing. I held both the camera and lens using my hands. -Andrew Underwood

So here goes my first entry in the Gizmodo shooting challenge. I used a speaker cover for background and putted an old AMD CPU I salvaged from a dead computer. I mounted my DSLR on a tripod and putted my desk lamp on top of the arrangement. I used my newly bought Canon T1i and the 18-55mm lens that came with it at ISO 200. -Benoit Lépine

So I was excited about trying this technique and knew to get a good picture I needed to do a studio set up which was pretty simple. I had a 1000 watt work light I picked up at Home Depot for $20, my black infinity board for product shots, and my fathers old Nikon 35mm SLR. I had the light on the right and a white cardboard reflector on the left for my camera. I used my Nikon D60 ISO 400 1/160 and the lens I used was a 50mm prime that actually come off the camera. I'm taking a picture of the F-stop was fully open at 1.8. Hope you enjoy. -Carlos Bulk

Shot with a Canon 5d2 at ISO 200 and 1/500th, with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime at f13.

Top on my wish list is the Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L lens, so it follows that my favorite thing about freelensing is the selective focus possible by manually tilting your lens. In this case, I tilted my lens down a bit and blew this waning tree into beautiful bokeh, while capturing the detritus on the ground below in crisp focus. I have trouble saying much beyond that, I think this photo speaks for itself. -Charlie Dwyer

1/200 ISO: 200 18-55mm

Spent most of the day taking pictures of beads of water, and bugs (got some great pictures of a spider) with my lens reversed, but decided I wanted more, so I found a grass blade with some beads of water on it, and picked a flower to use as a back drop. Each bead captured the image of the flower wonderfully. I am kind of upset that I didn't get a very sharp photograph, but i was happy with the quite artistic result. Used a piece of a chopstick to hold the aperture lever open, and I used a coat hanger and some paper for a flash diffuser. -Chris Barron

Canon Rebel XSi, Shutter 1.3, ISO 400

I recently decided to retire my faithful hat, and what better way to send off an old friend than with a photo homage? Got a cool light leak on the right of the frame. So long, buddy. -Chris Bunce

I decided to stay indoors with this challenge because I was concerned about exposing my camera to the wind and rain that was predicted for the weekend. I am not sure where I got the idea for the crayons but I thought the colors would be neat for this type of shooting. I made a slight white balance adjustment in Aperture. Canon Rebel XS, ISO 800, 1/80, Canon EF 35 mm Lens -Christine Lyons

Canon 7D ISO 1600 Other stuff, too tired to check.

Close one getting this in on time. The editing was with a little help. I had problems getting the whole coin in obviously. I do love this week's contest though. I wish I would have spent more time on getting the perfect photo I envisioned. I kept burning my head on the halogen light source. Ah, hope you like the photo. -David Lantz

Canon T2i, Shutter @ 1/15, ISO 3200.

The different color laces were a part of my Halloween outfit this year, which worked great for making this photo look unique. My favorite part is the (lens) black 'shadow' at the bottom of the photograph. -Diego Jiménez

Shot with a Canon Rebel XSi, Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro Lens ISO 100, Shutter Speed 1/500

I would never have anticipated this would have become my subject for this challenge, but his baby chick hatched just in time for it - even though it was born a day later than the other chicks and was abandoned and forgotten by the hen. The only reason it wasn't thrown out was because it was peeping loudly from inside its shell. Once warmed up, the chick was finally able to push out from the shell while I documented the whole thing. Of all the other shots I took, this one turned out to be my favorite. Contextually, I like how this shot really encompasses the entire experience of struggling to survive and the exhaustion felt in the moments of repose after succeeding. Visually, I like how the focus from tilting the lens falls diagonally right on the head, wing, and foot - while the head and body of the chick lie in a horizontal line that ends with the out of focus remains of the egg shell in the background. -Esmer Olvera

Canon 300D, Mamiya Sekor f/2.8 80mm, f/2.8, ISO 400

I took a few freelensing pics over the weekend, but this simple one with my wife's vintage globe by our window ended up being my favorite. I have a damaged Mamiya Sekor f/2.8 80mm medium format lens that I used with my Canon 300D. -Greg Thorne

Taken with a Nikon D60 and a 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor; f/1.8, 1/30s, ISO400

This being my first time freelensing, this photo is part of a series of experimental shots I took while trying to figure out exactly how to freelens successfully. I set up my Rubik's Cube and mounted my camera on a tripod while adjusting my lens with my left hand and using my remote release with my right. -Haley Strohschein

Shot with Canon EOS Rebel XS with a 55-250mm lens and UV filter on.

Had a chance to go out to an orchard after not being able to get a shot I really like from the hockey game that I had hoped would provide one. Wasn't much around but was able to grab a couple of shots out back where they have a few animals for everyone to see. This was shot across one of the pens looking out to the trees. -Herron Dan

Canon Rebel XS 50mm mk2 f/1.8 ISO 100 Aperture f/0 Shutter Speed: 1/25

No Frills chocolate peanuts - nobody makes them better. The light fall-off from using the 50mm was quite incredible, and the 50mm makes it difficult to get things in focus. All in all, an awesome challenge for my favourite snack. -Javin Lau

I took this with a 5D MarkII and a detached EF 50mm 1:2.5 lens at f/ 1/160 and ISO of 1000. -Jesse O'Driscoll

Shot on my girlfriend's Canon 40D 100 ISO 1/50th Shutter Tamron Zoom Lens at 75mm (flipped around)

I was working with my girlfriend trying to figure out how the hell to do freelensing properly and came across a blog that suggested turning the lens around. It acts like a great magnifying lens if you do it that way. I started digging around for some object with nice detail or texture and found this oxidized quarter lying around. I lined up the shot and the first thing I saw in the frame was the word, "LIBERTY." -Jordan Mirrer

Camera: Canon T1i Lens: 18-200IS (zoomed all the way out, 18mm, detached, flipped around) ISO: 800 Shutter: 1/80sec Aperture: detached?

It was rainy and cloudy all weekend so most of my outdoor shots turned out horrible. I tried setting up a few photos with limited success and finally settled on the idea of creating a macro shot using this diamond necklace I bought my gf last year. I used a standard desk lamp to help with illumination. For the shot, I completely detached my lens, left it zoomed all the way out (18), and flipped it around to look through it backwards for the "extra magnification" technique recommended by PhotoJojo. I just put the necklace down on a desk and started shooting. Sadly, this was one of the best shots I was able to get before freaking out and re-attaching my lens. I realized later that using my heavy zoom lens made this challenge really difficult. After getting back to my apt., I played around with my 50mm fixed lens and immediately wished I had used that instead. -JT McGrath

Canon EOS XS DSLR and a 28-80mm lens

The setting I used was the close-up feature on the camera and then I would detach the lens and hold it at various lengths away from the camera body to get certain aspects in focus. The picture I chose to send is of a flower by dad has in his backyard. My dad loves to have flowers around the house and I've grown up with the sweet smell and beauty of flowers and have continued to have flowers and plants around the house now that I have moved out. I probably took over 100 photos to find a contender for the contest and it was a hard choice between two but I think the color and detail in the photo will shine through. It's a little hazy because I took the photo at night and the lens, when detached, casts shadows and weird flash flares on the picture because the length of the flash is blocked by the detached lens. -Katie Scarbrough

1/100th sec ISO 800 Canon Rebel XS 50mm 1.8

First time experimenting with freelensing. I was messing with tilt shifting effects on my piano getting used to the technique when I noticed the light hitting the bottle of tequila on the table. This was the first shot I took of the bottle and it ended up being the best shot I took that day. -Kris Gazell

I was pumped for the light leaks, and scared of the dirt and dust. Tried a few indoor items first to test out freelensing. Felt comfortable enough the following day to take it outdoors. Did a few city shots of varying sizes but the flowers were by far my favorites. The additional macro magnification and light leaks were exciting to discover and toy with... I captured this multi-colored dahlia flower, early afternoon, growing outdoors. Olympus E-510, 14-42mm, 1/40, ISO 100 -Lea Chambers

I would Title my photo Little Fall

Equipment I used a Nikon D200 with a 50mm F2 lens from circa 1972 (these go for about $50.00) and a Minolta Auto 128 flash.

Freelensing was something I had never heard of before and so I thought I would have to try it just to see what would happen. It was late I am not sure how late I needed to go to bed but thought I have to try this freelensing thing. Then I contemplated what to shoot. I'm in my basement its dark and raining outside and dark inside so I got out my old flash and set up one of my bonsai in front of a piece of turquoise and gold art. It's not much of an art piece but made a good background for the shoot. I set up near a wall so I could bounce the flash off the ceiling or the wall. Set my lens to f2 and 1/250 (can't remember ISO probably low 100 to 250) and focused to infinity. Put my camera in manual as it has to be anyway to use this lens. unmounted my lens and started tilting and swirling the lens just slightly off the body... finally I started to understand how the lens was magnifying things and tilted the lens not straight up or down or left or right but at a 45 degree angle and that is when I got this shot. The upper left hand corner is where the lens is resting in the body of the camera and the lower right corner is farthest away from the body of the camera. I especially like how the camera was able to focus background and foreground at the same time because of the angle of the lens. Hope you enjoy I did. -Logan Dodds

Camera: Canon 7D Lens: Canon 50mm ISO:200 Shutter: 1/8000

I was actually reading articles on your site when I came across this photo contest. Next thing you know i'm outside taking pictures of my dog ( who doesn't like to stay still) and found out that this might take a while. After about 300 photo's I finally started getting the hang of it.There was no real setup, just used the natural California sunlight and started snapping away. Hope you enjoy! -Michael Benatar

I gave this one a go with some music I hand wrote a long time ago. Shot with the camera integrated in my BlackBerry Tour (no flash) through the tilted and shifted Asahi S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8 lens from my Asahi Pentax Spotamatic SP. I think the music came out better than the photo — though this was my best attempt at this technique (hacked since I used my cameraphone). It is cool to see the music get new life through the photo however. It was also nice to be able to get so close to the subject. I may shoot my cameraphone through a real lens more often. -Miles Hancock

Taken with my T2i with 18-55mm stock lens at 18mm, at 1/250s, ISO400 and an F/0.0

Walking around looking for some decent horizon photos I stumbled on a pretty gnarly looking dead tree. Had totally forgotten about freelensing up until this point and so decided to give it a whirl. The part in the center was a weird compressed looking section of the branch, making it look like the lens stretched the thing right out. -Morgan Andreychuk

Canon Rebel XT 8mp. 55mm lens. ISO 200

We have a Japanese garden in the front of our house. This shot was taken from below a row of succulents that surround a small bridge over a koi pond on which my bonsai tree grows. You can see a portion of the bonsai in the background blurred out due to the extreme DoF caused by the lens shift. -Morgan Kopani

"Toothbrush"

7D 18-55 (detached, backwards) ISO 1600 1/40 shutter

I had done some free-lensing in the past, so I was excited when this challenge popped up. I got this shot by taking an old 18-55 lens and holding backwards in front of a toothbrush. By holding it backwards, (by the way you can do this with any lens) you get these insane macro shots. The lower the mm of the lens, the closer you can get.

Theres a pretty cool guide to hacking one of these lenses so that it can be attached to an EF/S body with full electronic function. (minus AF) It looks pretty simple and I plan on giving it a shot sometime since these lenses are about 50 bucks used. -Michael Salisbury

As cliche as it sounds, I visited a cemetery on Halloween to see what I could find for this challenge. This was taken at the grave of Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon Lee, where visitors have left pennies for their passage. The description reads: "Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five time more. Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."

Shot was taken with a Nikon D90 (1/1250, ISO 200) and 50mm lens, manually set at f2.8, detached and handheld around 10 degrees off-axis. -Nick Sprankle

These were taken with my Nikon D40. I used the kit lens (unattached of course) and this was the best I could do. This was one frustrating exercise. Happy Halloween! -Peter Berg

I've read about freelensing before, but never tried it seriously. It was fun to experiment with, but definitely hard to get anything in focus! For this shot I got very close to some fallen foliage on a large rock in my yard. I got the best results working with a prime lens set to its smallest aperture, then getting very, very close to the subject and tilting the lens until an interesting part of the subject was in focus. I think the super-narrow, funky area of focus worked really well in this case.

Specs: Olympus E-620, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens, f/16, 1/160 sec, , ISO 200, Hoya Circular Polarizing filter. I bumped up the colors and increased the contrast a bit in Lightroom and Photoshop. -Peter Lee

Taken with Canon T1i with a 50mm f1.8. We've been watching this Venus Fly trap devour flies on our window sill for weeks. As we near Halloween, it is a true horror. A plant...that eats flesh! I walked around my house and tried the technique for the first time on pumpkins and other fall / Halloween subjects. The Venus fly trap was the best. -Phil Beauchamp

Taken with my Nikon D50, the detached lens was a 50mm f/1.8. It was about 4 inches from the camera. My flash was to the side about two feet away. It took over 500 attempts to get a good one since I had to take a bunch, see how they looked, move a tiny bit, take a bunch more. Now I want a real macro lens. -Quentin Swager

Canon 50D with a EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II and lit with a 580 ex II and 430 ex II. 1/20 second with 100 ISO. I believe that I had set the aperture to 10 by using the DOF button while detaching the lens. The 580 was on camera and only triggered the 430, which was aimed into the part of the grinder that the meat comes out of. The lens was mounted on a tripod and aimed into top of the grinder while I moved the camera body around attempting to focus and compose shots on the LCD. The light leak often washed out the LCD completely and this image was taken blindly. -Rob Gierthy

I went out to get a shot of this grass with the golden fall sunset shining through it but the sky clouded over so I opted for the backup plan and off came the lens. I held the lens about half an inch above where it would attach to the camera against the body letting the bottom fall into the opening to tilt the lens. This is what I ended up with. The only editing was to resize for the contest. Canon 50D, 24-70 2.8L, ISO 100, 1/800th sec shutter speed and the aperture would be approximately 2.8-ish. -Roy Crawford

Pentax K-x Kit 55-300mm Focal Length 0.0mm Aperture ?? Shutter speed 0.6/sec ISO 100

So at first I started with my 18-55mm but I decided I wanted an added challenge,so i broke out the 300mm lens. I used a second tripod and rigged my lens to that with a shoelace of all things. I also set up a couple of flood lights. From there I just inched my lens away from the camera body. It's a mouse skull I found a while back placed on our chest freezer. I thought the freezers surface had a interesting texture. And as far as the colors go, what you see is pretty close to the original. I increased the saturation a little. The freezer was white, the halogen bulbs give off a yellowish light (which was similar to the skull color anyway). And the blue light on the sides is obviously the light leaks. And where the blue light leaks merged with the yellow light it obviously makes green. I also managed to get a funnel/triangle shape with the light leaks. It may not be typical, but I like it. It took a lot of shifting and adjusting, but I eventually got it centered and in focus. -Shawn Nicholas

Taken with a Canon EOS Rebel XS Digital SLR Camera with Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS lens

Every Saturday I volunteer at a "Miracle League" put on by my town. It's a baseball game for kids with disabilities ranging from mild to severe. The field looks strange because it is entirely wheelchair accessible, and the tee is for kids who need it (those who don't hit live pitch). Before the game, a kid was playing in the back field, so I decided to go ahead and take the opportunity. I held the lens about half an inch away from the camera, and took the shot. -Stephanie Peterson

Taken on a Canon 5D Mark II with 50mm f1.4 lens and 430exii flash. Camera was set to 1/200sec and ISO160 and before I detached the lens, I set the aperture to f4.0. I looked through the house for something to photograph (we had snow today so going outside was a no-go) and found these curtain tassels. It only took me 2 shots to get this one which I'm very happy with. -Winnie Tsui

Canon 7D EF 85mm about an inch off camera (the metadata shows 50mm, ha!) ISO: 500 1/800 sec at f / 5.0

Let me just start by saying this was a difficult challenge. Trying to get anything in focus was almost impossible for me. While at church I found a tiny worm slinking around, so I brought him home for a perfect macro subject. After about 100 photos with 3 different lenses, I couldn't get anything close to presentable and then I dropped a lens, not cool. To cool off I headed to the park for some inspiration. After just a couple shots I got in a groove and snapped this one. I love the solid stripe of focus at the diagonal, and the tone fits fall to a 'T'. The image was shot in RAW with conversion and minor tweaks completed in Lightroom. -Zachary R. Tolbert