Camera Lens Kit - Fish Eye, Wide and Macro

Purchased this kit to play around with the imaging ability on the iPhone and the Lumia 1020 -

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Don't mind the tape. I ripped the packaging open of this "Good Product".

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Contents -

- Lens clip
- 1x Fish Eye Lens
- 1x Wide + Macro Lens
- Lens caps
- Velvet bag for packing.

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The clip and Lens(es) are made of pretty good quality material. The lens are metal, while the clip is metal and plastic mix. Build quality is good and durable.

The lens screw on easily with about 2-3 full rotations only.

The lens -

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Though the packaging states 3-in-1, we actually get only 2 lens.

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First up the Fish Eye, which is supposed to have a 180 Degree field of view.

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And then the 0.67X Wide which also fits the Macro Lens. Now this is a pain to be honest. To be able to use the Macro lens, you have to un-screw a metal ring (good quality again though), and remove the Wide lens from the body -

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The lens and the ring. Pretty flimsy and easy to drop if attempted on the go. Though one would not be using the macro mode in the open, it's still an annoyance to remove/install the lens just for use.

Testing -

First up - Macro Mode -

Now this mode works really up close. Like an inch from the object being snapped. With the giant body of the phone causing a reflection, it will give you a capture, but it's not where close to what a decently entry level setup can offer. So this is pretty gimmicky to be honest -

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Here are two shots taken up close with the Macro lens


Next up - Fish Eye -

A small issue was spotted here. And this issue might be applicable to nearly all devices that have their cameras positioned too much to the middle. On the iPhone the camera is at one corner, so mounting this clip is really easy. But on the Lumia for instance -

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So this lens was no good. Not really that universal.

Anyways. Here's a preview of before fitting the Fish Eye lens and after fitting the lens to give an idea how much the field of view increases -

Before -

Thats my Lumia 1020 sitting on the shelf that I use as a base. Taken from about a meter away.
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After -

You can see the increased field of view. Though the black cut outs on the edges are pretty evident as well. ​

Fish Eye outdoors -

While collecting images for my Camera phone shoot out, I was able to test the Fish Eye and Wide lens outdoors. Though I took images on both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 5s, since the results were practically the same, I'll share the images taken from the iPhone 6.

One point worthy of mention is that the iPhone 6's protuding lens allows for a better mounting of this kit, so that you are able to center the Lens better. On the iPhone 5S, you have to keep peeking thru the lens to try and find the center position.

Before or Stock Photograph (Mounted on tripod) -




After -



You can see the blurry lines around the edges and the black cut outs. Also the image beyond the stock field of view is clear, but only to a limit.


Wide lens -

Before -



After -



Honestly, I could not really tell the difference. Though I did crop the wide shot and get this -



And you can still see the image curving towards the ends.

Now to sum it up -

Overall - 2/5

Not much to be gained honestly. You might use the Wide lens for some group photos (provided you are carrying the lens with you) or for some scenery/landscape shots. The Macro lens does add a functionality that will allow extreme close up shots of items, but not everyone would use the feature.

The Clip is easy to mount, but intrudes onto the touch screen so certain controls (that come under the clip) cannot be operated while clicking. This might work well for someone taking a selfie, so yeah they have a useful item to purchase.

This is not really a Universal Kit, so check your camera position before planning on one. Overall, it's just a gimmicky item, right up there with the Selfie Stick. The difference is that the Selfie stick allows for some good shots (and I would recommend) while this does not.

Hope you liked this review. Cheers!

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The image degradation is a strong enough reason itself not to get this.

 

Sure, kept aside for you.

yep, but the macro mode is pretty nifty. Also, when you resize to a quarter/sharing size it's not that evident.