When creating dreamlike images, the Obscura 50 Optic from Lensbaby for the Optic Swap system is an unusual 50mm Pinhole/Zone Plate/Pinhole Sieve pancake lens with a versatile range of selectable styles. It is a manual focus lens with three selectable pinhole styles that each provide a different, soft, and surreal rendering.
The Obscura isn't a lens, it is an extraordinary experience crafted in the origins of photography before complex lenses were available. It is suited to photographers and creators who connect with working with fewer choices and are looking for challenges to redefine what it means to create photographic art.
50mm lens for full-frame format cameras.
The pinhole is not technically a lens, it is a clear round hole photolithographically etched on a multicoated optical glass surface. It has an effective maximum aperture of f/161.
A pinhole sieve is a field of 523 pinholes, with the center pinhole being the largest and increasingly smaller pinholes radiating away from the center. It has an effect aperture of f/64.
A zone plate is a series of 47 clear circular rings surrounding a center hole with each of the clear zones equaling the area of the pinhole in the center, resulting in increasingly thinner zones when moving away from the center of the zone plate. It has an effect aperture of f/32.
The zone plate has a curved field of focus, creating a center sweet spot with falloff in the corners. The pinhole and pinhole sieve have much more consistent resolving power at the corners of the image as they do in the center.
The zone plate and pinhole sieve options produce more detail than the pinhole option. Raising contrast and increasing vibrance and/or saturation setting in the camera can bring a zone plate or pinhole sieve image to life.
The Obscura's pinhole, zone plate, and pinhole sieve are made up of three layers of photolithographically-applied chrome with a total thickness of 0.00014mm deposited on 1.5mm thick glass element, with a resolution of 128K dpi. This photolithography process not only makes true zone plates with excellent light transmission, but it also produces perfectly round pinholes and precision circular zone plate zones.
The glass features anti-reflective coating and can be cleaned like any camera lens, without fear of destroying any of the three imaging options.
Minimum focus distance: Pinhole: 0.04" / 1mm Pinhole Sieve: 9" / 228mm Zone Plate: 10" / 254mm