Lensbaby Omni Color Expansion Pack

November 6, 2019

This summer I created more promotional photos for Lensbaby and their new product called the Omni Color Expansion Pack, which works with the Lensbaby Omni Creative Filter System. While the Omni system is originally based around prisms, crystals, and other light-refracting elements, this expansion pack mostly uses colored films and gels to create in-camera effects. Although, the Omni Color Expansion Pack also includes two multi-colored crystals and a rainbow diffraction film to round out the bunch.

Here is an official product photo of the Omni Color Expansion Pack:

Above, you can see the array of colored gels and films that come in the expansion pack. The gels and films attach to the magnetic effects wands, which are then mounted to your camera lens. (Also displayed are the multicolored crystals, but I wasn’t able to test these specific pieces in the kit so I won’t be giving my opinions on those.)

Here’s another product photo with two wands attached to a camera lens via the magical magnets:

It’s a crazy-looking setup, but the important thing to remember is once you adjust the effects wands to your liking, you can repeat the desired effect over and over. It would be almost impossible to repeat an effect when hand-holding a prism or gel, because even slight adjustments will dramatically change the look.

Color Expansion Pack: Urban

Just like testing the original Lensbaby Omni system in May and June, I got to know this new gear by first going on photo walks and simply experimenting. I didn’t have much of an agenda while shooting other than wanting to have fun and get an understanding of the gear. It was a lot of trial and error at first. My first photo walk didn’t amount to anything good because I forgot to shoot with a wide aperture. Oops. The next time around things were much more productive. Here’s a couple of my favorites from my second photo walk around NE Portland:

Now that I was feeling warmed up, I made my way down to the East Bank Esplanade (a walkway along the east side of the Willamette river). There, I found a freeway overpass that really caught my attention. The afternoon light was really cool on the cylindrical pillars. I took my time and just experimented with a couple of the gels/films in front of my lens:

My basic idea was to fill in the negative space on the left side of the frame with color so it complimented the shape of the overpass. It was super windy down on the waterfront, so the flexible gels were flapping around wildly in front of my camera lens. Initially, I was annoyed, but then I realized the wind was changing the look of the effect each time I took a picture. The wind was an element of unpredictability that I just had to embrace. It’s true the magnets keep everything in place, but weather always wins.

My two favorite photos from this group are the upper and lower left photos, and the lower left photo ended up being chosen by Lensbaby for promotion of this product! Go wind!

Color Expansion Pack: Portraits

I also created some portraits of a model named Katy while using this product. There’s no better way to test out your gear than in front of another person. Pressure’s on :)

I thought Mt. Tabor Park would be a great place to wander around and create some interesting shots. Here are a few of my favorite portraits that day:

I really like how I could change the mood simply by changing the color or position of a gel in front of the lens.

Color Expansion Pack: Nature

In August, I took this gear with me while on a short vacation to the Oregon Coast. Here are a few of my favorite photos from that trip:

While on a hike, I was feeling inspired to create eerie, ghostly forest scenes. If you’ve ever spent any time in an Oregon forest, you know it’s kind of eerie to begin with. However, these effects seem to sell that vibe a bit more.

I also created a very subtle and pretty effect while on a hike at Cape Lookout State Park:

I photographed this scene by positioning a gel to only cover the sky, leaving the ocean untouched by the effect. I now had a sunrise-like moment in the middle of the day. Finally, someone made a product to help nature photographers who can’t get out of bed before 9am!

Conclusion

The Lensbaby Omni Color Expansion Pack adds quite a few options to an already abundant set of effects in the Omni system. As you can see in my photos, you can use the colored gels and films in a supportive role, or you can use it to take over the entire scene. I’m a big fan of experimenting with colored flash gels, so this is another great way I can harness color to tell a story.

Special thanks to Lensbaby for asking me to try out the Omni Color Expansion Pack!

-Chris