As good as phone cameras have gotten, their inherent limitations, such as fixed focal lengths and the lack of optical zoom, can really stifle your creativity during shoots. As such, there hasn’t been a shortage of third-party lenses that reinforce the smartphone camera with just a little more power. The new ExoLens lenses look to set itself apart by shipping with lenses from acclaimed German lens maker Zeiss.
Instead of using magnets or suction pads to attach to your phone, the new lenses come with aluminum mounting brackets that wear around the phone’s frame. The mount ensures the lenses stay in place the whole time, apart from placing them at the precise location (the mounts are built specifically for individual phone models), guaranteeing zero problems during set up. It even has a tripod mount on one side, allowing you to use the phone hands-free in landscape mode.
Three lenses are available in the new ExoLens with Zeiss optics line: a wide-angle lens, a macro lens, and a telephoto lens. The wide angle lens gives you a 165-degree field of view, expanding the iPhone’s coverage by 35 percent, while the telephoto delivers three times longer focal length than the standard iPhone lens, with both promising “excellent image performance” and “outstanding edge-to-edge contrast.” As additional feature, the macro lens comes with a unique zoom function between three and 12 centimeters, enabling flexible image compositions during close-ups.
The ExoLens with Zeiss optics will be available starting in the 2nd quarter for iPhone 6/6 Plus, 6S/6S Plus, and Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge.