I thought I’d write today and give a little love to those of you who shoot primarily with your smartphone and also show you a fun smartphone photo gadget.
Did you know that the camera most used to post on Flickr is an iPhone? Take a look info at this link: https://www.flickr.com/cameras
This doesn’t surprise me. Since it’s inception, the smartphone has quickly evolved to be the most easily accessible, ubiquitous, most connected camera around. To some degree, you can inexpensively “modify” your smartphone camera with inexpensive apps to integrate timers, longer shutter speeds, photo effects, fast continuous shooting, sound triggers, image stabilization … the list goes on! You can then send your works of photographic art to your friends on facebook RIGHT NOW. Oh and it takes videos and fits IN YOUR POCKET! With these little wonders, it’s no wonder that it’s the most popular camera on Flickr.
I’ll soon be writing more articles on tips to shoot with smartphones, apps and other recommendations that will help you get the most out of your mobile phone camera. Keep an “eye” out for them. (Eye, get it? It’s a photo site … eye? … photos!? … (crickets) … sigh)
Alright, today I’m going to “focus” on a $15 gadget that I’ve recently bought and used. It’s a set of 3 (count ‘em three!) glass lenses that clips on to most smartphones and allows them to shoot more wide angle, close-up macro or extreme fish eye. I spoke about this in the Photo Thingamajigs section of Podcast #3. You can listen to it here.
For about $15 you get a plastic clip that has a hole on one side where the lenses attach. You screw in a lens, clip the gadget to your phone over the camera lens and you’re good to shoot! See the images below.
How does it rate? You get what you pay for. This is not high precision Leica glass designed with infinitesimal tolerance. It’s a consumer level set of lenses that expands your smartphone camera with a small pocketable gadget that makes it fun to use. Again you get what you pay for. About $15 for fun? Deal.
The wide angle lens is not bad, but there is a noticeable level of edge blur, vignetting and chromatic aberration. The macro is actually pretty impressive. It gets you super close to your object. Again, there’s lens blur and other artifacts, but not bad. The fisheye is a gimmick lens, but since it came with the other two, I’m not complaining too much. It vignettes so bad that you can see the lens edges (you could crop in post) and the blur is almost intolerable. But remember … $15 of fun, right?
Here’s what I think might be one of the best uses of this gadget: selfie videos and photos. Because it’s just a clip, you can attach the wide angle lens to the front facing camera and not just the back. There are many other choices of lenses for your smartphone, but most of them allow you to attach the lens only to the rear camera, a limitation. With the front facing camera selfie technique, you can get more people in photo selfies or get more of the background in during your selfie video. Groovy!
I have not been able to track down THE, singular manufacturer of these lenses. As far as I can tell, there are many vendors that sell the same thing. I’ve scrutinized the images that they post to show their product and, paying attention to all the little details in the photos, they all look like the same thing. My guess is that there is some manufacturer cranking out these things in China which are then mass sold to different vendors / distributors. I’ll put a link below to the one I bought and several other options. By the way, if you buy through my affiliate links, a tiny portion of any purchase you make on ANYTHING comes back to me to help support this site and it won’t cost you a cent more. DoubleGroovy!
UPDATE: I just posted a new article and video in which I extensively review the less expensive lens systems and the Olloclip lens system. See the article HERE.
Check out the images and links below
The end of photography from IKEA?
This looks like it would be a pretty good purchase! Do you know if it works with the iPod touch?
Dana, it should work just fine with an iPod touch! The only thing you’ll need to keep in mind is that it won’t work well with a case on. The case I use comes off pretty easily when I want to use the lenses. If you’re case is difficult to remove that might be an issue.
Thanks so much! I will definitely give it a try. My case comes off easily, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Great little gadget! I’ve only seen phone specific ones in the past (Ollo Clip). I definitely would love that for macro… Been wanting to write a kids book for years illustrating with Legos. Thank you for sharing this and examples.
I’d consider this worth the price just for the macro capability. Much more affordable than an equivalent macro lens for my DSLR! Do you find that the phone’s automatic focus works well with the macro lens? With such a shallow depth of field, focus would be critical.
I use a LifeProof case, so not so easy to take off.
Lee, so far no problem with the auto focus, but you can always force the focus by tapping on the location you want in focus. You’re right about the shallow depth of field too, it’s very shallow at this macro level.
Sonny,
Do you know if there’s a Polarizing filter for smart phones? Maybe I don’t know enough, but would a polarizing filter even be useful with a smart-phone camera?
Brian, there are a couple options out there. This: http://j.mp/WA8hg5 (Olloclip Telephoto Lens and Circular Polarizer Filter) and this: http://j.mp/WA8fVF.
You might also try to pick up an inexpensive polarizer filter like this and just hold it in front of the phone lens: http://j.mp/WA8WxZ. Hard to beat for about $15! (US)
And yes, I polarizer will have an effect with any camera. Just remember there are some tricks to correctly using a circular polarizer. You can’t just slap it on and expect results. Angle to sun, how wide the lens is and what you’re shooting all make a difference. I’ll do a write up / podcast on polarizers in the near future. Thanks!
Cool tip Sonny! I would like to get one of these for my iPhone 4s. I think I like the wide the best.
Thanks! Cool device – and pretty cheap too!