At Home with Tech

Sure, the cameras in iPhones are remarkable. They’re so good, in fact, that they’ve effectively destroyed the compact camera market. Who needs to carry around another device, when your iPhone (or any smartphone for that matter) can do it all? They’re built with multiple lenses with different focal lengths. They’ve got software magic to digitally add in bokeh (blurry background). And you can instantly share your photos everywhere. What more could you possibly want?

As it turns out, the camera sensors in newer phones are even more powerful than those amazing little lenses. What if you could attach an even better lens on top of the phone’s lens (like a pair of distance or reading glasses)?

Well, you’d capture an even better image. And would that really matter to anyone?

Attach an Add-On Lens to Your iPhone
So, yes, our phones may have rendered all consumer-grade point-and-shoot cameras obsolete. But there’s still the mirrorless/DSLR camera market with premium lenses costings thousands of dollars. Can phones compete with that kind of gear? 

No, not quite yet. Not for the professionals. (Well, not for all professionals.)

There are some who’ve decided to pressure-test my question. They’ve explored optional upgrades to their iPhones with add-on lenses to create a more cinematic image.

And you can too.

Use an iPhone Case with Special Lens Mounts
When you read a story about a movie shot exclusively with an iPhone, it’s never just the iPhone doing all the work. 

If an iPhone were a Star Trek filmmaking device assimilated by the evil Borg, there would be numerous metallic attachments awkwardly bolted into each corner to enhance every capability. Fortunately, reality offers a more elegant solution that begins with a slickly-modified iPhone case.

Last time, I searched for a new iPhone case to better protect the camera lenses on my iPhone. I chose the SANDMARC iPhone Pro case, because it nestled the three lenses under an aluminum frame built into the case. (This offers much better protection than most iPhone cases out there that leave that space wide open, save for a little raised lip.) 

But wait. There’s more….

This aluminum frame also doubles as a screw-in lens mount for a variety of add-on lenses that you can buy to enhance you’re iPhone’s camera skills.

SANDMARC Microscope Lens
Though I wasn’t originally looking to explore extra lenses for my iPhone, curiosity, of course, got the better of me once I decided on my new case. (If you’re shopping, there are also other brands in this market.)

SANDMARC offers a variety of add-on lens: 3 telephoto lenses, an anamorphic (for filmmakers), wide, fisheye, macro, and microscopic.

I was originally focused on the macro lens to enhance my flower photography, but my old Panasonic Lumix LX-10 camera can already focus in relatively tight. So, I took a closer look at SANDMARC’s 40x Microscope Lens.

It’s compact and screws easily onto the mount for the 1X iPhone lens.

You Have to Get the Lens Really Close
You need to place this lens literally on top of the object you’re shooting. So close, in fact, that the lens rim has to actually touch it, blocking out most ambient light. Because of this limitation, the lens is built with a little circular (rechargeable) LED to illuminate the shot. Clever.

I figured that since this type of photography is an area I haven’t been able to explore with my current gear, I embraced my inner Ant-Man and decided to buy this cute microscope lens.

A Whole New World is Revealed
So, I screwed my new lens into my iPhone Pro Case from SANDMARC and went to work. 

The results were instantly remarkable. It’s amazing what this little lens can capture. It revealed a whole new world as it peered deep into both natural and man-made objects. This lens has a narrow, fixed focus range. So, you just have to keep that in mind as you frame your shots. Here are some examples I just shot.

10 iPhone Photos Using My Microscope Lens

Game-Changing Photos for a Fraction of the Cost
Whether you go microscopic, macro or telephoto, most of these add-on lenses range between $100-$200. That’s a totally different price point than many lenses for mirrorless/DSLR cameras. Those more traditional lenses range from hundreds to thousands of dollars for ‘good glass.’

These iPhone lenses may not be quite as good, but they do offer a whole lot. (My new microscope lens is a game-changer.) And for the price point, it’s a great value.

Back to the Future
For most of us, iPhones offer the perfect camera solution for our daily needs. But you can still level up your shots if you strap on a better lens.

There’s a certain irony to all this, as we’re effectively building back to what we already had before wafer-thin iPhones… a bulkier camera with a protruding lens.

I still think that’s okay, and this is all rather ingenious.

iPhone camera magic can only take you so far. Sometimes, you’ve still got to go old school to get the shot with a better lens.

And this is a cost-effective way to do exactly that without having to leave your iPhone ecosystem.

Brilliant.