[Accessories] | Clip-on camera lenses | Are they any good?

"mobile photography gig"?

I'm pretty sure that you have seen one of these incredibly cheap mobile lenses out there. They are usually sold in combos of two or three lenses in a pack. Commonly, one of those will be a fish eye lens, the other will be a wide angle or a telephoto zoom lens, and another one might be a macro lens.

I was quite curious, just like you probably are, as to how good these cheap add-on lenses actually are. So, I decided to give it a shot. I ordered one of these three in one Universal clip on lens combo from shopclues.com. If you are from India, you and I both know that you get cheap variants of items on ShopClues, and I didn't want to spend too much for this "test" of mine, so don't judge me!

Photography under a budget!

Besides, your only focusing on very cheap mobile lenses, which promise some exceptional results out of your smartphone's camera.

I personally use the Galaxy S7. It has a pretty good camera as you might already know. Also, I love taking great photographs on my phone's camera. So, I started to wonder if these lenses would enhance my photography experience at least a little bit. After using them for a while these are my impressions on these products (I can already hear your opinionated remarks!).

If you are wondering which product in particular did I buy, it was this one.

When I looked at this lenses for the first time, initial Impressions were pretty good. They build quality does not disappoint at all for the price. I don't think they are metal but I'm not entirely sure. The screen is same solid and lenses overall are pretty decent in quality. Only complaint that I had was with the clip itself. That clip that holds the lens to your phone's camera was slightly defective in my unit. That was the start of a bad taste with this product.

The "wide angle" combo

At first, I thought I was scared that there are only two lenses in the box where I was promised 3 for the money. But then I realized that the wide angle lens is actually a combination of the Macro as well as another Wide Angle attachment to it. So when you unscrew them all, it together makes a 3 lens set up.

That horrible glare tho..

I don't know if the lenses are damaged or not, because the visuals were just not clear when I put on this lenses on my phone. Fish eye lens Would Still show me the barrel of the attachment lens, which I thought was weird.

With wide angle lens

Without wide angle lens

The Wide Angle setup was not too great either, as I could not tell much of a difference before attaching the lens to my phone and after. The field of you was pretty much same to my eye (except of course the clarity, which suffered a lot with the lens on).

Macro lens is pretty good

The only thing that was not a total disappointment was the Macro lens. It was actually pretty good and I could really get close to a subject which I could not do without it.

Can't focus without the macro lens

But for some reason, it too had a weird flare around the focused area, just like the fish eye and wide angle setups.

So, I think it's pretty clear what I am trying to say here. These cheap and setups do not do their job at all. That may not have been a surprise to many of you (all of you) at all, and I know that! The only reason why I decided to try out these cheap accessories was that I have been wrong about them before. I have purchased a few things before which were surprisingly great for their below-the-norm price tag. Unfortunately, these Ultra fordable advanced photography clip on Universal lenses are not one of them.

The only good lens from the trio

If you appreciate the time that I took to prove something with you probably already knew, consider sharing this post with your friends who are into cheap stuff. I am going to go and return this thingy to ShopClues, and hopefully get a refund. Meanwhile, why don't you consider subscribing to dope tech fever with your email? It would mean a lot to me, mate!

Cheers!