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A few weeks ago, I picked up an olloclip. It's a three-in-one camera lens attachment for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. I've been impressed with the quality of the iPhone 4S cameras, so I jumped at the chance to try out the olloclip.

The olloclip is a small attachment made of lightweight aluminum, reasonable quality glass, and a sturdy plastic. The three lenses are contained on the two sides - fisheye on one, a wide angle lens on the other, and a macro mode lens beneath the wide angle lens (you physically unscrew the wide angle lens to expose the macro lens beneath).

I was impressed with the fit and finish of the olloclip - it was snug but fit nicely on all the iPhone 4 and 4S models I tried, including those with some thin screen protectors. It's a bit annoying to have to take the case off, but there's really nothing that could be done about that. The lens aligned perfectly with every iPhone camera I tried. It's simple to put on, remove, and to flip around or use. There's no software, either.I'm mildly disappointed by the picture quality, but for something that costs less than $70, I'm not sure if that's warranted. Some full size fisheye images are below, and as you can see, they're noticeably blurry. But I doubt very much you're interested in a three-in-one lens for your iPhone if you care about pixel peeping at 100%. The images look great on an iPhone and flaws only stand out when you get to 50% or more of the actual size of the image.

The fisheye lens works great. The wide angle lens is "okay" - I didn't find much use for it, but if you're routinely trying to take photos in tight spaces (like your friends crammed into a booth at the bar), then the wide angle lens will be great. The macro lens works really well and, not surprisingly, offers the best quality of the lenses.

The olloclip works with video as well, though the caveat there is that the video uses a different field of view, so results will be slightly different.

If you take a lot of photos - for Instagram or whatever - the olloclip deserves your attention. It fits in a pocket and snaps on in an instant, and produces some pretty amazing images for a relatively inexpensive cost.

Three Fisheye Lens Images

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