Sunday, March 16, 2014

Moment Lenses for your Mobile

Glass is the key to better lenses. Ask anyone and hey will tell you the same thing but not many people know this. Manufacturers have used plastic lenses but they don't let in as much light as glass lenses do and this is where the folks at Moment Lenses hope to change things.

These folks were just looking to fund their tooling cost but ended up with half a million dollars and a busload of backers who want the lens package from their Kickstarter campaign.

Adaptor Mount 

You don't be a physics genius to know that in order to adapt a lens over a mobile device, you will need to have a damn good adaptor to make sure the lens fits in just right. This is crucial. Forget those clip on lenses, they don't work and yes, they have poor picture quality as the lens does not couple accurately. Light bounces about a lens barrel once it is not mounted properly, and this is one area where Moment lenses aims to beat the competition.



Moment lenses comes with a jacket lens mount, so you won't go wrong with the mounting process. Now I have to say that I have not seen any quality pictures as yet from the wide angle lens that will satisfy my curiosity as all the images seem to be coming from just one model, the iPhone 5.


The design criteria as seen is the right one so I do hope that it will measure up in the end. What's more, they are offering Moment Lenses for both iOS and some Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy series.



Not all Android devices will be supported so the list is rather short but there is a good chance that more will come if it proves to be successful.

Moment folks say that they also have an option to stick on a metal ring that uses magnetism to couple the lens to the mobile device, this might sound like a good idea but trust me, it is much more difficult to achieve a good image but I will reserve my opinion until I see sample pictures. The samples released so far shows a pretty good result from both the wide and telephoto lenses. You can check those here


Two Lenses for both Still and Video Use  

I am more excited over the wide angle than the telephoto one. I like to get close to my subjects and a wide angle is often the better option. Most mobile devices have a field of view of between 28mm to 38mm in full frame speak. Moment claims it can convert the humble iPhone 5 to work like a 18mm lens. That's pretty awesome. 


Sorry but there are not Android samples at the moment so let's hope it is as good as it claims to be. During the kickstarter campaign, US$99 would buy you both lenses.

With these lenses, you could effectively reproduce the imaging results from a point and shoot camera with aplomb. Just remember to use them in daylight. Anyway, watch out for them once they are ready to launch world wide. Right now, they are busy making the product for the backers. You can place an order with them once they are ready to take online orders.








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