These are the two weirdest phone camera accessories to get. With a small and pocketable size, are they enough to make a difference when taking pictures with your smartphone? Well, let’s find out…
Let’s kick things of with the microscope. It came in this carrying pouch, which is decent, I guess?
It’s completely made of plastics, just as the internals, except for the glass part. It’s rated to give you a 60x zoom as seen here. I guess the main purpose to get something like this is for currency detection, or for gold, or jewellery inspection, those kinds of stuffs. But I had other plans for it. It comes with 3 LEDs up front which are white lights on both ends and a blue one for the middle. It runs of 3 AAA CMOS batteries. You know, the ones you typically see in a wristwatch. The actual name is LR1130 AAA button cell in case you want to purchase any afterwards.
The blue light makes it easier to see other things that may not be too visible to the naked eyes. And as you may have already guessed, you can’t use both white and blue lights at the same time. The lens also comes with this phone clip to help attach your smartphone to it with ease. The clip is firm and stiff enough, so yeah, no issues of it falling off.
Now, let’s see how it performs in a real-life scenario. I have these little toy cars as my subject for today. I’m also using the two white lights for this. And as you can see, you can get some really closeup shots of just about anything. I also took pictures of my table mat with both the white and the blue lights. Lemme know which one you think looks cooler.
You know what, let’s play a game. I’ll throw a bunch of random close-up shots, then you try to guess what that thing is. Spoiler alert, you are mostly likely going to get all wrong, maybe.
Here’s the first picture, pause the video then comment below what you think it is. You done? Well, if you guessed fabric, you’re not entirely wrong. It’s a thread.
Here’s another. Did you guess a Rubik’s cube? No? I guessed not.
How about this one? A toy bird?
I’m sure you know what this is. You may have guessed this one correctly if you’re old to this channel.
Next off, is the telescope. For an 8x zoom, it is quite small and pocketable. It comes with two lens covers, both made of plastic, of course. On the size is the focus tuner. It looks quite similar to the zoom ring on a zoom camera lens but, this is just for focus. And unlike the zoom camera lens, which allows you to change how far or close a subject can be, this is just stuck with 8x throughout. Just like the microscope, this also comes with a phone clip, but this type is detachable from the lens. What you do, is screw it on when you’re ready to use it, then unscrew when you’re done.
I’ll have mine sitting on top of the main camera lens so I can get the best possible quality images and videos. I know it makes the phone looks cool and all, but here are some photo and video samples.
This is how images look without the lens at 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x zoom using the phone’s own digital zoom on the camera app. Now, this is how it looks when we put on the telescope at 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x.
This is how it looks on the main lens and when we the telescope lens on it. We also get some vignetting at the edges of the pictures so you may have to zoom in a little bit on each shot just to get rid of it. Either that, or you shoot with the 1:1 aspect ratio.
So, with smartphone cameras just so good with the Samsung S21 or iPhone’s 13 10x and 15x zoom respectively, should you get something like this?
And with an inbuilt microscope on the Oppo Find X3, should you get something like this?
Well, for less than GHc 50 on either of these two camera accessories, if you’re that person who wants to have a little bit of fun, playing around with your phone, then, this is for you. Not everyone, including myself, would want to pay over GHc 8000 for a phone which such features which I would not be using on the daily. So, for me, I would get something like this. I would have it around when I need it, and put it away when I don’t.