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by anujkk 4539 days ago
Like many other verticals there are many technological innovations happening in photography too. This "smartphone attachable lens-style camera" is one of these recent innovations. I can't comment on quality of the lens itself but they must be far better than that of a standard camera installed on mobile phones. These lenses can be used both attached/detached to the mobile phone. They use NFC (if your phone is into that sort of thing) or create their very own Wi-Fi signal to connect with the phone.

I first read about such lenses and other similar products on http://photojojo.com/store/ . They have such products for both android and iphone.

Now, is it worth it? Depends on your requirements. If you don't want to get into professional photography but still want to improve the quality of your photographs you can use one of these. However, remember that these don't replace DSLRs.

1. Mobile Camera : average quality/almost zero creative control/very good mobility

2. Mobile Camera + Lens accessory : better quality/almost no creative control/good mobility

3. Point & Shoot Camera : decent quality/little creative control/good mobility

4. Hybrid/Zoom Camera : decent quality/very high optical zoom/decent creative control/poor mobility

5. Mirrorlesss/Interchangeable Lens Camera : Good quality/Good Creative Control/average mobility

6. DSLRs : Good quality/Good Creative Control/Poor Mobility

I personally prefer to keep [1] in my pocket & [5] in my bag(along with lenses). I also have an old Zoom Camera that usually sits in my home. I occasionally use it together with a teleconverter lens to take photographs of sun, moon & objects/people that are far far away.

2 comments

According to reviews, the lens cameras don't work well in large crowds (e.g. Sporting events, your kids' school play). Physically docking to your phone would be more sensible (there's a kickstarter project along those lines). But frankly the gap between cellphone cameras and the rest is closing to the point where 1-3 is a wash, and 4 is pretty crap anyway. So it's 1-4, 5/6. If Sony would produce some decent lens options for reasonable prices...
Thanks for these details. I'm interested because I usually don't carry a bag, and care about mobility and availability. I also like the idea of taking picture without disturbing too much the (human) environment, e.g. without shooting too explicitely. However this lens seem to be too big to fit in a pocket.