bitplay Premium HD Wide Angle for Smartphones (DSLR Quality 0.60X Add-on Camera Lens Compatible with iPhone and Android)

As I solely shoot on an iPhone I decide it was time to up my game and recently purchased a Bitplay Snap Case for my iPhone XS as well as two of their entry level lenses. I was absolutely blown away by the case system alone and the ingenuity that went into it and the lenses made for a perfect addition! Needless to say I was anxious to try out the Premium HD lenses next.Full Disclosure: I did purchase the case system and entry level lenses but was sent the Premium HD Wide Lens to test and review, below I’ll give an unbiased review as well as a few tips to get the most out of this lens.First this is an amazing addition for any mobile photographer and works perfectly with the Bitplay case system or AllClip. Paired up with the Snap Grip it makes for a well balanced and highly portable camera. However to get the most out of it you’re going to want to jump out of the iPhone camera app and use something like the Halide App that allows you to manually focus the camera.I posted a few photos to show how well it does and some to show you it on the case and with the CPL Filter as well. The first photo is taken without the lens and the second is with the HD Wide Angle lens attached and you can clearly see the difference between the two. The third photo is a Nature Landscape utilizing the lens as well to give you a look at a everyday setting. If you’re not using a camera app that allows you to manually adjust your focus you could end up with some blurring on the edges, some of this can be cleaned up by applying a little bit of sharpness in post editing but you’ll get a better shot manually focusing. The next photo shows you the lens, then on the case system with the Snap Grip attached and one of it with the available CPL Filter attached. As you can see everything makes for a very clean well balanced setup to give you that extra edge to take your best picture.The Bitplay ecosystem is a 5 star setup and the HD Lenses a great addition to it one that I envision myself using for quite a while. The Wide Angle is by far one of my favorite additions, allowing for crisp wide shots that i couldn’t get before. Paired up with the right app and equipment you can definitely give a DSLR a run for their money!

Distortion from wide angle lenses is unavoidable but this lens controls this really well (might even be best-in-class).Despite the non-removable hood, this lens is still compact enough to carry around. The hood controls flare from strong light sources; and any flaring, tends to contribute to stills/video. The only other big thing to mention is that this lens is attached by threading it (instead of quarter-turn twist/ spade style of attachment), so installation and removal can be tedious (especially if you want to quickly switch to a second camera you phone might have.I chose bitplay over Sirui because I like Rhinoshield cases over the Moment cases. The Rhinoshield cases also allow the use of the Moondog Labs anamorphic lens for video. If neither of these matters to you, check out the Sirui 18mm (image quality is comparable).

Okay, I bought the lense from the company in Taiwan, not from Amazon, but I thought I write a review about this wide angle lense that I used during my trip right after my purchase. The idea is great, add a small lense on your cellphone and get wide angle effects. However, there is a problem no one seemed to have mentioned.I have an iPhone X, which has double lense, iPhone switches from the normal lense to the telephoto lense at about 2x zoom. Now that’s where the problem comes. Because the add-on lense is much larger than the original lense, by adding the lense, you essentially block the view window for the telephoto lense, without the add-on, the switch between the two lenses is seamless, adding the lense, when you zoom to over 1.9x, the screen just turns black, i.e. no zooming over 1.9x, and the lense won’t work for the portrait mode either, this was extremely annoying during my trip, I eventually stopped using the lense.On top of that, the distortions on the edges are pretty bad, even as an amateur I can tell.Had I known the 1.9x zoom limitation, I wouldn’t have bought this lense.

Overall, it's a product up to my expectation. i like the pictures taken with it and my Iphone-X. it's very compact and good for traveler like me, who doesn't like to bring bulky camera when travelers.If I have to say anything bad, the lens protector isn't very tight. I lost both front and back covers in a week, since they were very loose and easy to fall off.Where can i buy extra lens protector/cover?