Best Affordable Smartphone Lenses
We’ve already listed our favourite lenses for smartphone filmmakers. However, these lenses are going to cost you up to and over $100 each. If you don’t want to spend so much on one lens, you will find there are a number of good affordable lenses available.
Because these lenses are often a lot cheaper than the leading brands, you can’t expect equal image quality. However, many of them get pretty close. And if you are looking for something more “entry level”, a lower cost lens might be a good way to get started.
Here’s some of the best:
Anazalea for iPhone and Android
The Anazalea is a macro and wide angle combination lens for both iPhone and Android devices. The lenses are made from made of Germany Schott Optical Glass for extra quality. The lens can be easily mounted to most smartphones using a simple clip.
The Macro Lens gives you 15X magnification to get you super close. Great for nature photography, such as getting a close up of a butterfly in perfect detail. As long as you can get close enough with the camera!
The wide goes the other way (0.45X), squeezing more into less space whilst giving everything that fisheye look.
Mpow 3 in 1 Lens Kit
The Mpow 3 in 1 lens kit contains a fisheye, a 0.36X wide angle and a 20X macro lens. Use the transparent cap for the macro to get exact focus distance. The lenses again use the simple clip on method which should work for most smartphone models.
They are small and light so easy to throw in a bag for your journeys. They’re not the best quality but for a price you will hardly notice, there’s not much to lose. A great option if you just want to play around with different lenses and don’t want to invest big yet.
Find Mpow 3 in 1 Lens Kit on Amazon
Xenvo Pro Lens Kit
With this kit you get a (0.45X) wide angle and a (15X) macro lens made from German optical-grade glass. Again using a clip to mount, the kit is compatible with most iPhones and smartphone models. The kit comes with a handy little clip on fill light, too, to brighten up dark areas (eg if you need to add light to someone’s face). Obviously, with it being such a small light it will only be effective at close range. The light also has 3 settings: Low, Medium and High.
“Xenvo wide-angle lenses feature additional glass elements that correct unwanted lens distortion so straight lines appear straight.” Xenvo
The metal frames are well-machined and the lenses are good quality glass. The Xenvo Pro Lens Kit is compatible with the iPhone Xs Max, XR and other double lens models. However, the lens must be centered over the native wide-angle camera only. With these clip on lenses you will always have to play around to get the lens exactly over the smartphone lens so no shadowing occurs.
Erligpowht 11 in 1 Smartphone Lens Kit
Winning the prize for the most number of affordable lenses in one kit is the Erligpowht. This kit contains 11 lenses. Strictly speaking, they are not all lenses, as filters are included in that number. But still, the kit includes: (2X) “zoom” telephoto, (120°) wide angle, (198°) fisheye, (20X) macro, polarising (CPL), plus filters red, blue, green and orange.
Again, this kit uses a clip for mounting. Unfortunately, the lenses have no screw (they simply clip onto the clip) which means they can’t be used with other grips such as a Beastgrip. At this price range, you are going to get some distortion around the edges but that’s to be expected.
11 in 1 Cell Phone Lens Kit on Amazon
But wait… there’s even more affordable…
MOCALACA 11 in 1 Smartphone Lens Kit
Competing with Erligpowht for the prize of best 11 in 1 smartphone lens kit is this MOCALACA kit. A similar range of lenses at a similar (and at the time of writing even more affordable) price.
Some lenses which don’t appear in the previous kit are: Soft filter, which “makes the middle object stand out, produces a fog-like effect background”. 3/6 Kaleidoscope lens which “creates surreal overlap and gives images a majestic feel”.
11 in 1 Cell Phone Camera Lens Kit on Amazon
Bostionye 8 in 1 Phone Camera Lens Kit
Pushing down the affordability price barrier still further is this 8 in 1 kit from Bostionye.
I don’t think I’ll be using the star filter and kaleidoscope lenses, but the others would be fun to try out. As with all the others, these are mounted with a clip and come with a handy travel case to keep the lenses safe.
So far this kit is the most affordable of the kits I’ve looked at.
8 in 1 Phone Camera Lens Kit on Amazon
As I said, I’m expecting quality to be compromised a little by the price. But sometimes you will find these lenses can almost match the more expensive competitors and won’t hurt the bank balance so much.
Read more: The Kit List
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