Lensbaby is a small Portland-based company that makes some non-traditional lenses for DSLR, mirrorless, and motion picture cameras to creative unique effects. That might mean a look with controlled blur or something like that tilt-shift look, but it can also be some crazy fisheye adapters. This latest lens is a circular 185° adapter that mounts onto the housing of a GoPro camera to give an all-new perspective to action cam footage. They’ve put this fun lens up on Kickstarter to get the ball rolling, so take a closer look at how it can make you rethink the look of riding footage…
If you are already shooting a lot of video with a GoPro camera, the footage can get a bit repetitive after a while. By adding something like the Lensbaby Circular 180+ you can get ultra-wide angle shots that give an entirely new look on even your own familiar trails. With SuperView the stock Hero cameras have a wide horizontal field of view of up to ~120° depending on your settings, but usually max out around 90° vertically. With the more than 180° circular view of Lensbaby’s add-on, you will capture so much more of that peripheral action that it totally reshapes the look of your videos.
The lens simply clamps on over the standard GoPro waterproof housing. The lens itself is also waterproof to 3m/10ft (IP68 standard) and designed so that even under continuous of heavy splashing it won’t let water creep between the new lens and the base camera housing. An optional mount for submerged shooting in water is also available separately.
The Circular 180+ lens is designed to work with all of the newest generation of GoPro Hero and Hero+ cameras. Its 185° fisheye captures fully circular video (and stills) with the camera’s 16:9 recording mode, and even increases the Hero’s depth of field putting more of the shot in focus.
The Lensbaby Circular 180+ is available on Kickstarter now for $70 and up depending on how soon you get in on the deal. They’ve taken it to Kickstarter to try to spread the word a bit wider than their normal customer base, but also because after such positive feedback from video that they shot with a prototype, crowdfunding was a way to get the project out to consumers faster. The campaign runs until Jun 21st, and delivery of the preordered lenses is estimated to be this coming August, so just three months away.
