iPhone camera accessory review

olloclip. When I first read the name, I thought it was a jocular alteration of all on clip—a phrase delightfully appropriate for an accessory that lets you use three different lenses with your iPhone camera. But no. According to the accessory’s website, ollo means eye in some languages, and the reason the name was chosen is “one can’t help but compare a camera lens to an eye, even more so when the product includes a fisheye lens.”

Why ?

The olloclip is a clip-on, three-in-one lens (wide angle, fisheye, and macro) for your iPhone. Fisheye lens on one side, wide-angle and macro lens on the other. The fisheye and macro lenses are fixed, but the wide-angle lens is detachable. This set comes with lens caps and a microfiber bag that’s also a cleaning cloth for the lenses.

What we love

olloclip takes great pictures with the fisheye and macro lenses, and it’s small and handy, too. To be exact, it’s 1.37 inches tall and 1.22 inches wide, so it won’t look or feel awkward in your pocket and you can easily slip it on your phone whenever you need the boost the lenses afford. Well, easy for people whose iPhones are without casings or thick screen protectors.

What we don’t love

olloclip is designed especially for the naked iPhone 4 and the similarly built iPhone 4S. Its fit is not adjustable, so shelf life is terribly limited. If you grow to absolutely love this accessory, you’ll have to either stick with or wave goodbye to your current phone when Apple comes out with a thicker or thinner iPhone 5.

Another thing that could be a problem for olloclip users is the lens caps. You definitely need lens caps if you’re getting new lenses, and the ones that come with the olloclip, being so small, can be easily lost or damaged. Of course with a little bit of care, this can be avoided, but sometimes you’re just too preoccupied to even think about the lens caps.

The biggest problem with the olloclip, however, is its wide-angle lens. Sure, it doubles your field of view, but the effect produces a very noticeable barrel distortion in your pictures. Perhaps this isn’t a big deal to some people, but those who do mind are forced to pay for something they don’t want. It makes you wonder whether certain things were unwisely sacrificed when the olloclip was being designed.

The end game

If you don’t care about distortion, though, you may really like the olloclip. Just two wonderfully working lenses should have been enough, but it’s easy to understand why the designers chose to put that extra wide-angle lens in. You can always leave your fisheye lens at home when you’re out on vacation, but the macro and wide-angle lens are absolute must-haves if you really want to preserve your memories of that stunningly beautiful location you and your loved ones visited last summer. Or, at least, preserve them without the heavy use of Photoshop.