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Cell Phone Tele Lens


chiragnair

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Hiii guys,,,

I finally got a cell phone. I was holding out to be the last person on earth to get one, but my brother thwarted my plan by giving me a HTC M8. Having started with film and a Minolta XD-7, today I have a 7D and a full set of EOS lenses. I also have a little Lumix, if I want to travel light, but I expect to have the cell phone always with me.

 

I am no newcomer to photography, but I am keen to figure out the whole cell phone thing. The camera is actually quite nice, but the digital zoom is terrible. It's so bad that it's always going to be better to crop later than to use the the tele zoom function in the camera.

 

I've seen that auxiliary lenses for cell phones are available. The lens is pretty wide, and the macro capabilities are good enough. If I need more, I can always take a proper camera. But the tele is awful. Should I just keep on cropping, or would it be worth my while to look for an attachable tele zoom lens? It would have to be small, so it can rest permanently in a pocket. If I want to lug gear around, I won't rely on the cell phone. Does anybody have experience with this and can make some suggestions?

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No personal experience but in most simple words: I'd run!

I tested the clamp to put Minox C (sub-miniature camera) behind one half of a binocular. Results looked way worse than ordinary Minox shots.

If you have stuff laying around, I suggest to dabble. Free-lensing with an old wide open 50mm handheld in front of your phone might work. - Maybe try an old fast wide next. Shoot through viewfinders, binoculars, telescopes microscopes.

After these experiences look at your results and start thinking. - AFAIK a state of the art cell phone lens makes a whole lot of effort like 6 maybe Leica engineered aspherical? rare special material elements. Add-ons sold can't be (optically) great for their asking price. Since they are usually shipped with a clamp supposed to fit them on everything & the kitchen sink in cell phone land, they can't be precisely centered either.

if you ever lurkeded a discussion about affordable tele converters or even screw in front of your lens WA converters you should be cured too. Such stuff might work somehow if custom made by the lens' designer but one size fits all constructions can't be great.

 

To my understanding cell phone cam modules use every known trick to squeeze resolution out of their way too tiny sensors so the odds for results to suffer from tampering with their optics are almost infinite.

 

But if you are after 500x500 pixels to post somewhere you might have fun with add-ons. With basic wood working skills and permission to slaughter a clothes pin or two you should be able to make your own optical device to cell phone (or vice versa) attachment clamps.

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I've seen a couple of cheap clamp on lenses and they are awful. I think there are some pricey Schneider auxiliary lenses for phones, but I haven't tried them and I wouldn't be optimistic given the long history of poor quality add on lenses like this. The only ones that have ever tempted me are the expensive versions that Rollei made for their TLRs that were specifically made for their lenses.
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Just FTR: I quickly held a few lenses in front of my tablet. with RF or even MILC flanged glass the tablett autofocuses on the dust on the elements. Things should be different if you get it way closer to them, by for example holding a MF TLR lens directly in front or just the head of old RF glass.

 

In doubt: Leave the phone at home & shoot some camera peacefully.

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No personal experience but in most simple words: I'd run!

I tested the clamp to put Minox C (sub-miniature camera) behind one half of a binocular. Results looked way worse than ordinary Minox shots.

If you have stuff laying around, I suggest to dabble. Free-lensing with an old wide open 50mm handheld in front of your phone might work. - Maybe try an old fast wide next. Shoot through viewfinders, binoculars, telescopes microscopes.

After these experiences look at your results and start thinking. - AFAIK a state of the art cell phone lens makes a whole lot of effort like 6 maybe Leica engineered aspherical? rare special material elements. Add-ons sold can't be (optically) great for their asking price. Since they are usually shipped with a clamp supposed to fit them on everything & the kitchen sink in cell phone land, they can't be precisely centered either.

if you ever lurkeded a discussion about affordable tele converters or even screw in front of your lens WA converters you should be cured too. Such stuff might work somehow if custom made by the lens' designer but one size fits all constructions can't be great.

 

To my understanding cell phone cam modules use every known trick to squeeze resolution out of their way too tiny sensors so the odds for results to suffer from tampering with their optics are almost infinite.

 

But if you are after 500x500 pixels to post somewhere you might have fun with add-ons. With basic wood working skills and permission to slaughter a clothes pin or two you should be able to make your own optical device to cell phone (or vice versa) attachment clamps.

Thanks @Jochen bcoz of you my issue has been solved

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

TutuApp Lucky Patcher Kodi

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 weeks later...

You know, honestly- I wouldn’t put too much stock into your phone camera. Yes, a lot of people use their phones a lot for photos and many folks don’t even use a “real” camera- just their phone.

 

BUT as a person who takes a lot of photos with all manner of cameras, I can say that I mostly use my phone for (more or less) real-time updates and posts on social media, on things I’m mostly doing right in the moment.

 

Yes, for sure my photographic sensibilities and “know how” come into play a bit and my phone pix have improved along with the rest of my photos over the years. But it’s not like I harbour any illusions about phone “photography” as art, per se. Yes it’s fun. Yes I take lots of phone pix.

Do I really care about them the same way I do about my other photos! NO

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Hey, sorry I’m really just trying to say is do what you want of course but it’s my opinion that a phone pic is only worth so much and the best use for the phone camera is posting photos to social media sites.

 

so investing in extraneous hardware or whatever might not be worthwhile but as always, your own personal “mileage” may vary

 

cheers

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