Moment Brings High-End Camera Lenses To Your iPhone

Even as the image quality and feature set of the iPhone’s camera have improved dramatically over the Moment, a Seattle-based startup led by serial entrepreneur Marc Barros, is offering serious photographers an alternative with two well-crafted, though pricey, lenses that give your iPhone a wide-angle 18mm perspective or a longer 60mm field of view. The company’s Kickstarter-backed lens project attracted more than 4,700 backers, raising just over $451,000.

years, one obvious limitation remains: with the phone’s slim profile making a zoom lens impractical, you’re stuck shooting every scene with the camera’s 30mm equivalent lens.

There are several other players already in the add-on iPhone lens market, but most of their optics involve significant trade-offs in image quality. Lenses from Photojojo and Ollioclip for example, deliver images that are noticeably blurred and/or distorted compared to what you get with the iPhone’s built-in lens. Schneider Optics, the venerable German lens maker offers a lineup of high-quality glass for your iPhone but their lenses attach via a proprietary case, so everytime Apple AAPL +0.24% releases a phone with a slightly different form factor, you’ll have to buy a new one.

Moment’s lenses attach securely to your iPhone via a thin metal plate with a bayonet mount.

Barros and his team are avid photographers, and after being frustrated with the existing alternatives to the iPhone’s built-in lens, they began prototyping “better lenses”. Moment’s lenses stand out both for their stellar image quality and a clever mounting system that works with a wide variety of third party cases  (you can use it case-less as well). Both of the $100 multi-element lenses feature machined metal barrels and have the reassuring heft of high-quality construction. The Moment Wide 18mm lens has petal-type lens hood contour that provides some flare protection while avoiding vignetting in the corners. The Moment Tele 60mm lens has a deeper barrel that provides minimal protection against lens scratches.

The test of any lens of course, lies in the images it produces. In a looking over dozens of images I shot with both lenses, I found the results to be excellent. Color, contrast and image detail are identical to what I get with my iPhone 5′s built-in lens. Even more impressive is that the 18mm lens (my favorite of the two) adds no additional distortion of vertical objects. With either lens you get a genuinely useful focal length and sacrifice nothing in image quality.

The Moment Wide 18mm lens offers a more dramatic perspective with no additional distortion.

Future compatibility is a big concern when considering add-on lenses. After all, the lens makers are at the mercy of Apple, who with each new release can change any aspect of the iPhone’s form factor. Moment has taken a very clever approach to mounting lenses. Their system consists of a very thin metal mounting plate that attaches to your iPhone with double-sided adhesive. The company even includes an extra adhesive strip should you need to remount the plate later on. The lenses attach via the plate’s bayonet mount. You mount a lens the same way you would on a traditional camera, by lining up the notches and giving the lens quarter-turn twist. Mounting plates are also available for select Samsung Galaxy and Google Nexus devices.

This mounting design has two advantages. Because the plate attaches directly to the iPhone, it works for users who prefer to go case-less. Yet the ultra-thin profile of the mounting plate means that several styles of iPhone cases can be slipped right over it. Moment helpfully provides a case compatibility chart. Most one-piece cases with any sort of flex should work fine. The rigid plastic two-piece designs common in iPhone battery cases like the uNU DX I use, however, will not accommodate the mounting plate.

The second benefit comes when its time to upgrade your phone. Should Apple’s iPhone 6 offer a change in dimensions, as is widely expected, it should be trivial for Moment to fashion a new, compatible mounting plate. Moment currently sells its mounting plates for $10, far less than you’ll end up paying to replace an obsolete case.

The Moment Tele 60mm lens lets you take portraits at close distances without the distortion normally caused by the iPhone’s wide-angle lens.

Buoyed by the success of the Kickstarter campaign, Barros’ goal for Moment is to be, “much bigger than lenses,” he says. “We want to build the best tools for mobile photography”. He acknowledges that at $100 apiece, these initial offerings appeal to a small niche of committed iPhone photographers. Eventually he says, “we want to build products that work for everyone taking pictures with their phone. To get there we are starting with the most passionate photographers who require the absolute best quality.”

With these high quality and beautifully designed lenses, Moment has made a very promising debut.

Source>>