By Graham K. Rogers

The iPhone has a fairly good camera these days and there are a number of solutions available to expand its use with accessories, including lenses and other attachments. More and more people are using iPads and other like devices for taking photographs, but lenses designed for an iPhone or other smartphone do not always fit a tablet device. A solution for this specific difficulty has appeared and I have been trying out the Mobi-Lens macro, wide angle and fisheye lenses.

The two most important accessories that I bought for my iPhone 4 and 4S were the Glif tripod attachment (along with a small tripod) and the olloclip lens system. The lens fixture was designed to fit the iPhone 4 and 4S exactly. It was easy to slide the lenses over the body and begin to take photographs.

There were a couple of disadvantages. Any case or even a screen film meant that with the tolerances of the device, the fixture could not be used. When the iPhone 5 was released, the olloclip I had would not fit. A redesigned fixture is now available for the latest iPhone.

It was also impossible to use with the iPad. As many people now use these as their prime photographic devices, the extra flexibility that wide, fisheye and macro lenses provide, was not available.

A startup called Mobi-Lens developed a new system and the idea of the new accessory was floated several months ago. I put a small amount of money up as seed capital via a Kickstarter project and as enough was pledged, Evette & Aris Allahverdian were able to go ahead with the device.

It is simple, like the best solutions ought to be, and the lens is fixed in a two-peice plastic body - hinged like a clothes peg and with a spring. The lens is fitted to one of the jaws of the device. The other has a soft backing and grips the phone or tablet computer being used.

Unlike the olloclip which is one attachment with three lenses (wide-angle, macro and fish-eye), the Mobi-Lens system has a separate accessory for the fisheye lens. The other attachment is a combined wide-angle and macro lens, with the wide-angle lens being screwed into the macro in the same way as with the olloclip.

At the back of each lens is a magnetic shield that protects it when not in use. Each of these is attached to a small loop that could be connected to a keyring for safe storing. These may get lost if left laying about. The lenses also have flexible plastic covers. The springs used to open the jaws and to ensure the lens attachment grips a device, are quite stiff: easy enough for me, but perhaps not easy for a young child to open.

I was able to try all three lenses quite quickly with my own iPhone 4S as well as an iPhone 5 and a couple of iPads. The jaws did not open wide enough to allow me to use the iSight camera on the old 20" iMac I keep in my office (the newest iMac is shown on the Mobi-Lens website). I was, however, able to use the lenses with the MacBook Pro: the wide angle lens being particularly effective. While placement over the camera lens was not always perfect, it was easy to move the Mobi-Lens so that it was centred.

I did not try with any Samsung device (all the owners of these were out this week). A student's Nokia phone was not suitable as the thickness of the body and the centred lens made it impossible for the Mobi-Lens to open wide enough.

Taken with Mobi-Lens Macro on iPhone 4S

Photographs taken with the lenses were as good as those I had produced with the olloclip system, but there is a certain awkwardness about the peg-like accessory hanging off the device. The dimensions of the iPad 3, for example, and the size of the "peg" meant that there are limits to the angles we can attach the lenses.

While the olloclip lens system was easy to fit accurately over the iPhone lens, due to its design, the Mobi-lens system could be mis-placed, but the design mean that adjusting it to a correct position for taking photographs was fairly quick. While working with the Mobi-Lens, I had to make sure I placed the parts and covers where I could see them as they may be easy to mislay.

Currently the lenses are available from Mobi-Lens in black; and only for pre-order. The price for the separate parts (fisheye, and macro plus wide-angle) is $40 each. As a combined package the cost is $65. Mailing to this area is another $18. I have asked the developers when colour options will be available (I have seen photographs of these and they will appeal to many users) and when devices will be available. As yet I have had no reply. I will update this page when the information is made available.

While the good engineering of the olloclip means it fits perfectly on the device it is intended for; as good as it is, that is its limit. For those who only use a single device (like me and my iPhone 4S currently) the olloclip is a good solution.

For others who want to use lenses with a variety of devices, and not just Apple ones, the Mobi-Lens does mean that flexibility is part of the design: and if a new device appears, the Mobi-Lens should work with that too.

I took a number of shots for comparison which are shown below: iPhone alone, iPhone + olloclip fisheye lens; iPhone + olloclip wide-angle lens; iPhone + Mobi-Lens fisheye; iPhone + Mobi-Lens wide-angle.

iPhone + olloclip fisheye lens

iPhone alone

iPhone + olloclip wide-angle lens

iPhone + Mobi-Lens fisheye

iPhone alone

iPhone + Mobi-Lens wide-angle

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.