What is your opinion on external iPhone lenses?

[geniereddick]

I'm considering purchasing an external lens kit for my iPhone to help improve the quality of my pictures and video, but first I'd like to get your opinion. Are they useful? Do they make big different in terms of quality? Can you get nice bokeh with them? Stuff like that.

 

[lehill]

I'm considering purchasing an external lens kit for my iPhone to help improve the quality of my pictures and video, but first I'd like to get your opinion. Are they useful? Do they make big different in terms of quality? Can you get nice bokeh with them? Stuff like that.

Good ones are probably fine for Instagram and Facebook just like regular iPhone photos. Tele clip-on lenses are better than cropping, wide-angle versions are probably more convenient than stitching together a pano. The fundamental quality of the photo isn't going to change, cheap clip-on lenses will probably make it worse.

A giant part of the "formula" to get fuzzy backgrounds is the size of the camera sensor and aperture which isn't going to change with a clip-on lens. Other parts like distance to subject (you want short) and distance to background (you want long) are up to you and probably not very practical with that tiny sensor:




Nice fuzzy background with my LG G5 phone. No tricks, no accessories, no software.



--
Lance H

 

[geniereddick]

Thanks so much lehill! That was very helpful and useful info! Everything you wrote makes a lot of sense. I'll keep all that in mind as I consider my options

I'm considering purchasing an external lens kit for my iPhone to help improve the quality of my pictures and video, but first I'd like to get your opinion. Are they useful? Do they make big different in terms of quality? Can you get nice bokeh with them? Stuff like that.

Good ones are probably fine for Instagram and Facebook just like regular iPhone photos. Tele clip-on lenses are better than cropping, wide-angle versions are probably more convenient than stitching together a pano. The fundamental quality of the photo isn't going to change, cheap clip-on lenses will probably make it worse.

A giant part of the "formula" to get fuzzy backgrounds is the size of the camera sensor and aperture which isn't going to change with a clip-on lens. Other parts like distance to subject (you want short) and distance to background (you want long) are up to you and probably not very practical with that tiny sensor:


Nice fuzzy background with my LG G5 phone. No tricks, no accessories, no software.

--
Lance H

 

[HedgehogFarm]

I've tried a few, and by far the best I've seen in terms of optical quality are the ones from Moment. (https://www.shopmoment.com/)

The big downside is that you need a special case from them that has a mounting mechanism for their lenses. Also, the lenses are a bit pricey but clearly very well-made.

I ordered the wide-angle, the macro, and the tele. The first two are great, and I kept them. The tele I didn't see as much value in because I have an iPhone 8 Plus that already has its own tele lens. With the Moment cases for dual-lens iPhones, you can attach any Moment lens to either of the iPhone lenses. But the quality of iPhone tele + Moment tele wasn't that great, and I'm more of a wide-or-macro shooter anyway. All of the lenses seem to work better on the primary (wide-angle) iPhone lens, too.

If you don't mind the price and the case, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the images. You won't get much additional in the way of bokeh (for reasons discussed upthread) but if you want wide or macro capabilities, they're a good bet.

 

[geniereddick]

Thanks HedgehogFarm! Your two cents on this matter are much appreciated. I keep hearing a lot about Moment lenses, so I pretty sure that's the direction I'll be going. I'm surprised though that the telephoto isn't that good on the Moment. I wonder what you would happen if you put the tele on the tele built into the iPhone? Hmmmm.

 

[HedgehogFarm]

Thanks HedgehogFarm! Your two cents on this matter are much appreciated. I keep hearing a lot about Moment lenses, so I pretty sure that's the direction I'll be going. I'm surprised though that the telephoto isn't that good on the Moment. I wonder what you would happen if you put the tele on the tele built into the iPhone? Hmmmm.

Sure thing! Yeah, I tried putting the Moment tele on the iPhone tele and the quality was noticeably bad. I think I deleted the comparison shots after I decided to return it, but as I recall it was almost to the point that you were better off cropping the native iPhone tele given the loss of sharpness and some weird aberrations. It may be that it is more optimized for the iPhone wide lenses since every iPhone has one of those.

 

[CAsurfdog]

These are great...but spendy...and are designed to work with one model only.

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www.moondoglabs.com

Use one of those and something like FILMIC Pro and you can really up your video game.

I’ve heard decent things about Exolens...but have no first hand experience so can’t comment.

Regardless of what you choose, it’s going to no different than purchasing any other lens: start with a poor design and cheap materials and the results are likely to be less than stellar.