iPhone Hard Case & Zoom Lens

The camera on the iPhone 3G and 3GS has never been its main selling point. Compared to just about any current smartphone, Apple is clearly lagging in the camera quality stakes. What it's not lagging in are iPhone camera apps — whether you want to create panoramas, selectively desaturate images or turn them into grotesque cartoon caricatures. It's all in the name of creative expression, and in a creative sense the iPhone might just have the best camera going. Where it does fall over is in the zoom department. Sure, there's embedded digital zoom in iOS4, and some applications that mimic it, but digital zoom is a matter of software interpretation rather than a real-world way to sharply focus in on a camera subject. The 8x zoom in the iPhone Hard Case & Zoom Lens is intended to overcome this shortcoming. It's really one of those products that describes itself. It's a zoom lens with a fixed 8x zoom and slightly adjustable focus via a focus ring at one end. Attaching it to an iPhone 3G/3GS involves slipping the iPhone into the supplied hard case back, which has a thread around the camera lens for screwing the lens in. A small portable tripod is also provided, although it lacks truly extensible legs. Taking photos with the lens revealed both its strengths and weaknesses. Yes, you're 8x closer to the object in question, although the nature of the optics means there's no easy way to use this for macro-style work. You need to be a good couple of metres away from any object to maintain that focus. Many of the test images I shot displayed vignetting, especially around the bottom of the image, and it was something of a constant battle to get the iPhone's auto-focus and the focus on the zoom lens to play nicely together. I ended up using Gorillacam to take most of my images, simply because its three-shot burst mode gave me the best chance of getting the best possible image. Sayings regarding purses of silk and the ears of female pigs come to mind when trying to work out if an iPhone zoom lens could ever be spectacularly good, simply because the core image technology within the iPhone has its limits. The zoom lens does what it says it'll do, and does open up some new creative possibilities for distance and effect photography within the iPhone's rather limited scope. It's undoubtedly a bit of a cheap and gimmicky product, but then so are most iPhone camera applications. There have certainly been times when the iPhone's been the only camera I've got with me, and having zoom capability (even slightly shaky zoom capability) would have made a significant difference.