How to increase the vision of your iPhone camera
Cameras and travel
In previous years, you might have travelled with a range of camera equipment: SLR camera; lenses for close-up and distance shots; a video camera; a separate microphone. These days, you’re using only one device, and it’s a smartphone.
The cameras in smartphones are excellent. With an iPhone X, you can take a range of photo styles: time-lapse, slo-mo, video, photo, portrait, square and pano. On top of that, the editing range is huge: change the colours, crop all images, play with the light and colour settings, and share your images with your social media.
But sometimes you want just that little bit extra.
The clip camera lens kit
Olixar has produced a clip-on lens that further enhances your smartphone.
This kit transforms your smartphone or tablet camera to take one of three different types of photo. For the light traveller, this is a handy, light addition to your select light luggage. It won’t take up masses of space; the pouch with contents included is light enough not to make a difference, and the pouch clips onto your bag for everyday use.
What’s included?
The nifty black hard pouch comes with three lenses, the clip ons, lens covers and a microlight bag that doubles up as a cleaning cloth.
Landscape shot with wide-angle lens
Wide-angle lens
The wide-angle lens snaps up to 145º for super wide shots, perfect for photographing a landscape or when you want to capture a large building in one shot.
Fish-eye lens photo of studio
Fish-eye lens
The fisheye lens captures your surroundings with up to 180º field-of-view. The rounded edges give your photo a funky 70s-style look.
Capture a hallmark detail with the macro lens
Macro lens
The macro 15X lens has a focal distance of 13 mm (1/2”) for close-up shots. This is useful for specialist photography like capturing antiques’ hallmarks.
How does it work?
The camera lenses screw into the clip ons. The clip ons clip over your smartphone lens.
You can toggle between wide angle and fisheye lens, or unscrew the wide angle to use only the macro lens.
Use the camera as you normally would. The clip on lens works with the smartphone camera functionality.
Snapping a wide-angle view of my desktop
One word of caution: if you’re using a super robust camera cover, the clip-on will not open up wide enough to clip onto your phone. But for most phone covers, that will not be an issue.
The details
- Make: Olixar Premium 3-in-1 universal clip camera lens kit
- Size: 14 mm x 10 mm (5.5” x 4”)
- Weight: 94 g (130 ounces)
- Cost: RRP $35.99
- Where to buy: I bought mine from MobileZap
