Olloclip: A Brief Comparison Article -

The Olloclip is a external lens system compatible with the iPhone 4/4s. It consists of the three lenses. A wide angle, a macro and a fish eye in one compact unit. It comes complete with lens covers and a carry bag, which doubles as a cleaning cloth.

To use, the Olloclip it is attached to a naked (caseless) iPhone, it is slipped over the top of the phone positioning the lens of choice over the camera lens. To access the macro lens you simply unscrew the wide angle lens attachment.

Image 1 – Native Lens

Today I am comparing the native lens, the wide angle and the fish eye lens. I used 6×6 and for something different DMD panorama.

This image above was taken with 6×6 and the default lens of the iPhone 4. There’s slight vignetting visible caused by the lens.

Image 2 – Wide-angle Lens

This is the same shot but taken with the wide-angled lens, it obviously has a lot more content.

Image 3 – Fish-eye Lens

This is the fish-eye image which gives a fuller photo but as it is a 180 degree shot you can see a lot of out of focus detail around the edges.

Image 4 – Native Lens

I repeated the exercise here too. This shot is just the default iPhone camera lens.

Image 5 – Wide-angle Lens

The same shot, same time with the wide-angle lens.

Image 6 – Fish-eye Lens

The same shot again but with the fish-eye lens.

Image 7 – DMD With Native Lens

I then thought I would use the DMD Panorama app as an experiment shot, this is the first image with the default lens.

Image 8 – DMD With Wide-angle Lens

This is the same shot with the wide-angled attachment lens. I found that the wide-angled lens is perfect when you need that extra field of view; approximately double that of the native iPhone camera.

Image 9 – DMD With Fish-eye Lens

Finally, this is the same image taken with the fish eye. I found both the fish-eye and wide angle caused some ghosting, although I actually thought it could be a really interesting effect for art work.

Example Of Fish-eye Lens Using The Native Camera

To conclude, I really liked the wide angle lens. I think it is perfect for landscapes and streetscapes. I’ll be honest and say the fish-eye and I did not see eye to eye. Completely a stylistic incompatibility of course! It is not difficult to use and I have seen some amazing examples of its use, but I didn’t take anything fantastic with it. Never one to shy away from a challenge though so I have set myself the task of using it for the base of some artworks. Stay tuned!