Olloclip or Shiftcam iPhone Telephoto (plus smartphone) Lens; or Moment 58mm vs 60mm? (no affiliation)
Olloclip lenses are one of the most popular brands of lens attachments for your iphone or smartphone. They’re doing a great marketing job on their lenses, along with Moment. But are they the best ones out there?
If you are looking for a new lens to add to your smartphone photography or filmmaking kit, you might want to take a look at the less well known Shiftcam lenses.
Check out the Shiftcam Pro Lens Telephoto which is currently at $79. Used with their specially designed case (extra purchase) it is compatible with iPhone Xs Max, iPhone Xs, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone 7/8 Plus, iPhone 7/8. Can you attach it to a non-iPhone phone?
They call it a 60mm telephoto (although they also call it a 65mm elsewhere on the page). The lenses are big but the image quality looks better than the competition, with Olloclip coming out worst in a Tom’s Guide test.
Read more: Telephoto Lens – Why Do You Need One?
One of the most common issues with any add lenses for your smartphone is image distortion. Because the lens is being mounted over your existing lens in the phone (rather than replacing it). Like the effect you get when you shine light through a prism – it’s called refraction.
Now look at the outside areas of this test shot using the Olloclip lens:
It seems to be worse on the right side of the image, which suggests it could also be to do with lens placement. With clip on lenses you really need to make sure the lense is perfectly centred on the smartphone lens below.
Here’s Olloclip’s own stills test from their video:
It’s looking pretty smudgy. Especially at the bottom of the image where the leaves should be in focus but are more in a kind of soft focus. Although, this close up looks worse than some of their other samples – check the video.
Meanwhile, this is Shiftcam’s own test shot using their Prolens Telephoto (with an iPhone):
As far as smartphone telephoto lens attachments go, the ShiftCam lens holds up pretty well.
“In a shootout with three other premium telephoto lenses, Shiftcam’s came out on top for its value, ease of use, and performance. However, the company only makes cases for iPhones; if you have an Android phone, take a look at Moment’s or Sandmarc’s lenses instead.” Tom’s Guide
Meanwhile, for comparison, here is a test between the iPhone, iPhone + Moment Tele (58mm) and iPhone + Moment Tele (60mm).
Check out the full test video here:
Olloclip lenses are cheaper than ShiftCam or Moment, and also have a “multi device” option to suit most non-iPhone smartphones. Moment have cases for Pixel, OnePlus and Samsung as well as iPhone (for about $40).
If you just want to play around with different lenses, you could check out the Shiftcam 6 in 1 case and lenses for iPhone. This allows you to attach a bunch of lenses to your iPhone and then quickly switch them around to try different styles.
“As you can see in the samples below the add-on lenses only have a minimal impact on color response and exposure. Both wide-angle and fisheye are sharp at the center of the frame but fall off towards the edges. As you would expect, this fall-off is more drastic on the fisheye. Some vignetting is noticeable when photographing bright scenes on the wide-angle but the effect is within acceptable limits.
Overall the optical quality of the Shiftcam wide-angle and fisheye is not outstanding, but decent for smartphone add-on lenses in this price range. Both lenses are useful for those situations when you want to squeeze more of a scene into your frame.” Lars Rehm
Not great quality but maybe kinda fun – if you want to give your iPhone images a kind of Kodak Instamatic quality.
Eager to learn more?
Join our weekly newsletter featuring inspiring stories, no-budget filmmaking tips and comprehensive equipment reviews to help you turn your film projects into reality!
