Freelensing

Okay, so I realised that in my post a week ago I mentioned the term 'freelensing' but never actually explained what it was or showed my experimentation with it. I might've- well, definitely- exaggerated about my 'obsession' with it. It's not an obsession. And I haven't really tried it out on a proper shoot or anything... mainly due to lack of willing models.

But I thought I ought to at least explain what it is, in case anyone doesn't know. It is pretty self-explanatary but I'm hoping that me writing this down will help absorb this into my memory and I'll remember to try it out again at a later date (hopefully tomorrow).

Freelensing is the name that someone- I don't know who- gave to, basically, taking photos without a lens. Okay, without a lens isn't strictly true. Taking photos with a detached lens is perhaps more accurate. The idea is to hold the detached lens in front of your camera and depending on the angle you're holding it at and how far away from the body it is (and other factors like this) you get a different effect.

A disadvantage to this is that you have to learn how to keep your hands steady- especially if, like me, you don't have a tripod. There's also the balancing act of adjusting the zoom and focus with one hand (as autofocus obviously won't work with this process).

Another major disadvantage is that the sensor in the body could get dirty or dusty and, apparently, it's extremely difficult to clean. And everyone likes to avoid cleaning if they can help it. It's human nature.

However, freelensing can be magnificent if, like myself, you are a fan of macro shots. What this process allows you to do is turns the lens 180 degrees so it's the opposite way to what it would be normally, and this acts as some sort of magnifying glass which lets you take some ridiculously close-up shots. Also, changing the zoom on the lens will change the magnification, with the smaller the zoom, the greater the magnification. Obviously, this has the same problem of steadying the image because you can't use the stabiliser and it's hard to balance the two components of the camera.

This was one of my first attempts at freelensing (I had the lens backwards in this):

I wish I had more examples of this process but I only have one more, which demonstrates perfectly that the only way to become good at this process is to practice, practice, practice (this time I held the lens the right way round):

Like I said earlier, hopefully I should have more examples of freelensing tomorrow as I'm doing a photoshoot- well, several photoshoots- with my best friend for my media coursework. And if I do, then I shall edit this and post them below.