Freelensing...

I was recently issued an interesting challenge for Get Pushed. It's called freelensing. Let me tell you....it is not for the faint of heart! I have no idea who thought it up, but he/she was nuts! The technique is to shoot with your lens unattached to your camera, holding the lens close to the camera body. You're supposed to tilt the lens back and forth and up and down to create some interesting illusions in the focal plane. It is harder than it sounds!

1. There is a risk of dropping your lens, since you're trying to hold it, tilt it, AND manually focus with one hand.

2. There's a risk of getting dust or moisture on your sensor.

3. There's no way to meter, because your camera body can't communicate to the lens when the lens isn't attached.

4. I was advised to shoot in aperture priority mode, but Nikon won't release the shutter in anything but manual when the lens isn't attached.

5. My aperature blades closed down automatically every time the lens was unattached and I had to find a way to hold them open while balancing the lens, WHILE trying to focus manually, while trying not to drop everything. I found a discussion page that suggested using sticky tack to hold the blades open. It did work, but remember...temps are still above 100 here. Within just a few minutes, the sticky tack was a sticky MESS and it was getting all over my lens. At this point...I declared this little experiment "over". So this was my best shot.

It my opinion, it was more trouble than it was worth...but if you're feeling adventuresome...try it. Maybe you'll like it. I think it's an acquired taste. Theoretically, you're shooting with a zero aperture so you can get an even shallower dof. I don't think this looks all that different than my f/1.4 tho'....so I'm not about to try it again.