Lensbirdie & her Lensbabies

Hi there, I am Birgit. The moniker for this photoblog—”Lensbirdie”—came naturally, having been called birdie for more than half my life and being a shutterbug for nearly as long. I live in southern Norway with my longtime partner and two young adult sons. I work as an in-house graphic designer at a large multidisciplinary consultancy. Photography has been my main hobby for well over 20 years.

I purchased my first Composer, half on impulse, during a lunch break in the fall of 2010. It came with the Double Glass optic and the default aperture disk set. I must admit that I struggled quite a bit at first — finding a balance between the right amount of focus and blur — but I never considered giving up. Some strive for perfection in their photography, while I resonate deeper with images that some would consider imperfect — and, as such, perhaps closer to reality than the technically perfect ones. Lensbaby’s magical bent and blurry look is spot on for my life experience and photography style.

My Lensbaby gear has become my go-to optics; I only use “normal” lenses for volunteer assignments, most often of the documentary type (music festivals, concerts, TEDx talks). Even then, I make sure to add a little LB magic..!

Camera club activity and organisational positions

An eager amateur, I am, of course, a camera club member. I’ve served as the deputy chairman of the Norwegian Photographic Society (2017–2021) and as the editor-in-chief of their online membership magazine for five years (2016–2022). I’ve been a member of the board at the Nordic Photographic Society since 2021 and at the Norwegian Nature Photography Festival—the largest of its kind in the Nordic countries—since 2020.

During the fall of 2017, I opened my very own photo gallery, where I showcased my own and other hobbyist photograpers’ work. The gallery gathered a group of like-minded enthusiasts — we had weekly meetups, where we either photographed something together or taught each other some nifty editing tricks. We started the weekends by having coffee together every Saturday morning. Since the pandemic, the activity has sadly dwindled, and the gallery has been put on hold.

Photographic achievements

Occasionally, I compete in national and international salons. I am proud that I have managed to get photos taken with a Lensbaby accepted. One of my photos is published in the 2017 Lensbaby calendar — an incredible honour and highly regarded acknowledgement!

My Lensbaby gear

I shoot using two full-frame Nikon cameras (Z6II and Df) and an m4/3 Olympus EM-10. Over the years, I’ve added quite the Lensbaby stash to my bag—as of 2024, I only lack the Soft Focus II optic to have a complete Lensbaby optics and lenses line-up!

Swap optics:

• Double glass (Oct 2010)
• Edge 80 (Feb 2013)
• Sweet 35 (Aug 2014)
• Optic swap kit: Zone/Pinhole, Single Glass, Plastic (Aug 2015)
• Soft Focus (Dec 2015)
• Edge 50 (July 2016)
• Twist 60 (Oct 2016)
• Edge 35 (Jan 2019)
• Sweet 80 (June 2020)
• Sweet 50 (Jan 2022)

Accessories:

• Macro kit (Aug 2014)
• Creative Aperture kit (Aug 2014)
• Omni Creative filter system + Color expansion pack (March 2020)
• Omni Crystal expansion pack + Flare wand expansion pack (June 2021)
• Omni Universal Expansion Pack with Shapes (nov 2024)

For mobile phone:

• LB-M10 (through Kickstarter Aug 2014)
• LB-M20
• LB-M30

This blog is dedicated to my Lensbaby photos only, and I will add older photos to the archive as I stroll along. You can see some of my Lensbaby photos on flickr through this link. I also have a couple of photo blogs in Norwegian, one general, and one urbex themed.