Camera phones are great, they allow us to capture, digitise and preserve memories at will, and the quality of inbuilt cameras has reached the level where for most of us we don’t require a dedicated camera. However there is one limitation on most camera phones, the lens type is fixed and digital manipulation is required to capture different styles of pictures. So here’s an option for smartphone photographers, the Kitvision 4-in-1 Lens Set which allows you to clip on extra lenses over your exiting camera lens.
Which lenses are included in the Kitvision 4-in-1 Lens Set
Housed in a rather smart protective carry case the set includes a slip on clip and 4 screw on lenses these are:
- A Fisheye 180 degree aspheric lens, f/1.4, 1.66 mm
- A T2.5, 20 mm multi-layer circle polariser lens.
- A 5x zoom Macro lens
- A 120 degree field of view Wide Angle Lens
You also get a useful lens cleaning cloth for taking care of any smears on the glass.
How Easy is the Kitvision 4-in-1 Lens Set to fit on your phone?
Taking a different approach to the Magnetic Instalens range of Lenses, the Kitvision Lens Set provides a clip on caddy which sits over the camera lens of the phone, you can then screw each lens into the caddy and after a slight fine tuning it’s all sorted, not quite as instant as the Instalens but very straight forward.
Photo Quality
All the following images are captured using a Kitvision lens and an iPhone 5S
There is no doubt that the Kitvision 4-in-1 lens set produces good images, although occasional slight blurring may occur as in any device where multiple and un-calibrated lenses are involved, but generally the image quality is good, but how does each lens perform? Lets take a look.
My personal favourite lens is the Macro lens, which is used to take images capturing tiny details. Like most magnifying lenses any shaking of the device (or target object) is magnified so you need to keep a very steady hand, but the output can be absolutely stunning.
For an Interesting style of photo The Fisheye lens lends a rather clever perspective to your image, squeezing your image into a sphere, the result is rather integrating.
For those looking for a wider shot on their image the wide angle lens provides a subtle yet welcome effect, stretching the field of view just enough to change the perspective and fit in that extra detail.
In the images below the default camera picture is on the left and the picture with the lens is on the right.
The forth and final lens included in the set is the polariser lens which is used for normalising colours and reducing reflections in the picture, of all lenses included the polariser lens had the least impact on the image, actually spotting any difference at all was sometimes a challenge. Perhaps it will excel in scenes I’ve not tested yet.
In the images below the default camera picture is on the left and the picture with the lens is on the right.
The Kitvision 4-in-1 Lens Set may be mistaken as a novelty but it adds extra versatility to your already useful camera. It presents a high quality and affordable option of anyone looking to increase their photography portfolio and is certainly one to enjoy.