Lately we’ve been playing with the olloclip, a three-in-one photo lens for the iPhone 4 and 4s. It simply clips on to the upper right corner of the of the iPhone (unfortunately blocking the lock button).
Clip on, clip off: The olloclip
Clip it on one way and you get a fish-eye lens. Clip it on the other way and you get a wide-angle lens. Unscrew the wide-angle lens and you get a surprisingly close macro lens.
There are no surprises with the fish-eye. While a little gimmicky, it can be fun. Particularly if you have a pet:
Rabbit meets fisheye and Hipstamatic
The Macro lens is perhaps the most wow-inducing of the lot. It captures incredible details, and a very shallow depth of field, at just a couple of centimeters away:
Close-up on a watch, no blur effects applied
Rounding out the set is the wide-angle lens. The iPhone 4S’s 30mm lens is actually a pretty wide angle to begin with, at least for my taste. That’s probably why square aspect ratios are so popular (think Instagram and Hipstamatic). Still, while there’s substantial distortion around the edges, if you like fitting more into the frame (olloclip claims it’s almost 2x what the iPhone offers), you’ll like this:
With the olloclip wide angle
Without the wide angle
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the olloclip is the build quality. It feels and looks substantial. And it slides on and off the iPhone easily (sans case), without damaging your precious. Unlike other lens systems, it stays in one compact unit (save for when you unscrew the wide-angle) – plus there are no magnetic attachments to cling to each other.
It’s a cool thing, this olloclip. Personally, I wish they’d opted for a zoom over a wide-angle, though it does offer intriguing possibilities for use with the iPhone’s panorama mode. Still, if you want to extend your iPhone 4s’s photo-taking capabilities, this might be a good choice for you.
