home | reviews | articles | price crusher | spotlight | case gallery | the team | forum

09 September 2010 

1 | 2 

Also supplied with the AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens is a carry strap. As the lens is so compact and lightweight, it makes sense to carry it around with you using this strap, either by attaching it to your camera mobile phone loop-hole itself or a bunch of keys for example. One end of the strap is elasticised and fits perfectly into a specially designed groove in the outer metal casing of the lens and provides a tight and secure, but easily removable, grip on the lens.

Special Groove Cut-Out | Attached to Mobile Phone Loop-Hole

Using the Super Wide Camera Phone Lens:

In order to use the lens with the camera mobile phone, it must first be attached to the camera mobile phone. This is a simple process and is documented on the reverse of the product packaging. The process involves taking one of the supplied steel rings, removing the paper over the high bonding adhesive and carefully placing the steel ring over the camera mobile phone lens, ensuring that it is perfectly lined up as so not to restrict the view.

Steel Ring Attached Previously - Lens Clips in Place...

Once the steel ring is attached to the camera mobile phone, the AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens can be offered into place and it will be held securely by the magnetic ring built into it. The process of taking photographs using the camera mobile phone does not change and the user should proceed to take a photograph how they normally would, according the camera mobile phone manufacturer instructions.

Without the Lens Attached | With the Lens Attached

Above, we can see the results that the AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens produces with the camera mobile phone.

On the left, the lens has not been attached. As you can clearly see, the preview image is a close-up and fairly narrow view of the fireplace subject in front of the camera mobile phone... once the lens is attached to the steel mounting ring, the same preview image of the fireplace has now changed dramatically, - we are now able to see and photograph the entire fireplace and its surrounding areas, yet we have not moved position nor used any 'zoom' function on the camera mobile phone.

A larger version of the same subject fireplace can be seen below:

With the AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens Attached...

Conclusion and Thoughts:

The AmacroX Super Wide Camera Phone Lens is a neat little product with more uses than one may first think. With camera mobile phones becoming the norm and evermore popular, a user will often be taking many images with their mobile phone. Although the quality of the image produced using a camera mobile phone is increasing, now with the AmacroX series of camera phone lens, the camera built into the mobile phone can become much more versatile, allowing the user to produce different types of images, such as extreme close-ups (using the AmacroX Micro lens). These different images could not normally be produced, as the user would be limited by the lens built into the camera mobile phone.

Camera mobile phone brand is not a factor when purchasing an AmacroX lens, its design of using steel rings and a magnet means that almost any camera mobile phone can be used. The only criteria is to ensure that the diameter of the steel ring does not restrict the view in anyway. We tested the rings on two main manufactures of camera mobile phones and found no problems, however to ensure that this may not be an issue for the end user, AmacroX could perhaps supply different sized steel rings in the retail package. Another concern, is those camera mobile phone models that do not have a totally flat surface for the steel ring to attach to, meaning the lens may not be secure and fall off or just not usable at all with the model.

Crisp Metal Finish | Some of the Other Lenses in the Series...

Its cool and crisp silver design matches the most common style of camera mobile phone exterior construction and looks almost like a genuine accessory for the mobile phone. Once attached, the Super Wide lens does poke out a bit, but as the lens is not permanent, it is only a small consideration. The amount the lens sticks out from the camera mobile phone itself will depend on the lens being used in the series, as they range in size. The steel ring design also means that no modification is required to the mobile phone and no damage occurs to it.

The lens dramatically changes that image seen by the camera mobile phone and is a fun way to extend the versatility of a camera mobile phone. One slight drawback is the black border that can be seen in the final image. This could be cropped out using an image editing program or a similar program that is available on some camera mobile phones. Having access to review only the Super Wide lens, it remains to see if the black border affect is also present in the other lenses of the AmacroX series.

modtown rating: 4 out of 5

Why not discuss this review on the forums?

top 

©2005 Modtown. All Rights Reserved | Copyright Information | Contact Us