The Lensbaby Sweet22 lens, new in 2024, was my Christmas present.

Among my Lensbabies I regularly use the Sweet50 lens and a little less the Sweet35 lens - both part of the Optic Swap System. The Sweet22 is a so-called pancake lens - a wide-angle lens, very light and not bulky: I bought the set with the handy case. It has a fixed f3.5 focal length and behaves like the other Sweet lenses, creating an image with a sharp centre surrounded by blur and soft bokeh. I would say that the Sweet22 has a smaller focus point than the other Sweets, a soft bokeh effect if the background is homogeneous and dramatic in the opposite case. The wide blur guides the eye to the detail in focus and I really like this and the bokeh effect of the lights is simply WOW!

I immediately put it to the test during a short holiday in Venice and I must say that I was thrilled with this lens too! I struggled a bit to find my vision due to the fact that it is a fixed lens and not a tilt-shift lens (so the effect is always central). I like the Sol45 and the Optica Swap System precisely because of this peculiarity! I found the solution by thinking of the ‘cropped’ shot in post production and the results seem more than satisfactory to me. From now on it will always be with me on my travels :)

Of course I had to try it out for my flower photography as well: I was amazed how the focus point is so close and you can shoot almost in macro mode! You can capture perfectly focused details surrounded by a vibrant bokeh: simply stunning! However, you can also screw on macro filters to get even closer.

I'm sure it is a very very versatile lens that is also well suited for portraits - I will try it out at the first opportunity :)