Little Glass; Big Flexibility

I have been using the wide-angle, macro, and fish eye for nearly a year. The telephoto was just released last month and I did not waste any time ordering one.

Cell phone lenses from Photojojo

The lenses are not designed exclusively for the iPhone. Any phone that has a camera and can accommodate the adhesive disc can use these lenses. Each lens comes with several adhesive metal discs which attach to your phone or phone case. The lenses attach via a magnet in the back of the lens on the mounting ring to this disc when you need it. The magnet attachment system is quick to use and allows for a lot of flexibility for fitting different phones. The drawback is that you have to affix something to your phone (or case) and because it is generic, it may not fit your phone properly. The plus is that it is fast to attach and detach lenses when you need them quickly.

Macro of a circuit board

When I went to apply the disc onto my iPhone 4, I noticed that the disc covered the flash. Not that I use it often, but I did not want to block that option. I used a pair of snips and cut the disc to leave an opening for the flash. It’s essentially a hack, but it leaves me the ability to use the lenses and the built-in flash. You may find that you need to do something similar depending on your phone.

One other fun thing about this mount is that it allows you to pull up one side of the lens from the phone. Essentially, you get a tilt-shift lens for your iPhone. If you are patient and like to experiment, this is a similar effect to a “Lens-Baby” tilt-shift lens.

iPhone tilt-shift

While these lenses do have decent qualities, do not expect professional performance. I would place the quality above a toy camera, but under a good-quality point-and-shoot camera. I believe that they are approximately the same quality as the glass in the iPhone camera. Depending on which lens you are using, you will see aberrations around the edges. I find the vignette blur of the telephoto lens to be attractive, but others may see this as a disadvantage. Each lens has a unique look and feel due to its inherent flaws.

iPhone Lightning Photo

The wide-angle lens gives the approximate 35mm-film equivalent to a 35mm lens. You can expect a spherical bend and slight vignette with this lens. If you take the front element off by unscrewing it from the lens barrel, you now have the macro lens. This is by far my favorite lens out of the set. With a focal-distance of about 3/4 of an inch, you can really get close to your tiny, little subject. Focusing can be difficult, but with practice it produces beautiful macro shots.

iPhone Macro of a spider

The fisheye lens gives a 170 degree field-of-view compressed into a circle in the center of your frame. The unique distortion of a fisheye gives some strange perspectives which can be quite beautiful if well-done.  If you have never used one, there is a little bit of a learning curve as you learn to keep fingers, toes, head, feet or your whole body out of the shot. Let the bends and other distortions work for you instead of fighting them for good composition. Also, plan on having light sources flare and blow out with this lens. Done right, it can be quite spectacular.

Church fisheye

iPhone Fall fisheye

The Telephoto lens doubles the magnification of the iphone lens. This is probably equivalent to a 35mm-film camera’s 85mm focal length. This lens has a tendency to soften or blur the edges of the frame and add a slight vignette. I have had only a short amount of time with this lens, but it has already made its mark in my iPhoneography.

Harlan Courthouse Fisheye

These lenses give so many options for iPhoneographers at such a reasonable cost that I find it hard not to recommend them. I hope you all have as much fun with them as I do.

Rating: ✭✭✭✭✩

If you purchase these lenses and would like to share your photos with others on twitter, please add the hashtag #PringleFYP to your tweet. This way others can see how you have used them!

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–David Pringle

http://www.pringle-art.com