Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Olloclip


Hi Everyone!  Meet Griffin.  For those who game, you know where he's from!  He has graciously agreed to be my model today.  Modelling what?  My new Non-beauty toy - the OlloClip!!!!!

I know that this isn't beauty related (for those that read both my blogs, this will also be posted on my gaming side), but I love this product so much, I thought that I would share.

This is a little lens that is made for you iPhone4 or iPhone4S.  It just clips onto the corner with your camera and instantly gives you three different lens to play with : wide angle, fish eye and macro.  I purchased mine from London Drugs because it was sale, but it retails for $69.99 at the Apple store.  Definitely a steal for what you're getting.  There is another lens out there called iPro, which retails for nearly $200.  I just figure, if I'm going to spend that much money anyways, I might as well save up a couple hundred more and get a real lens for my DSLR, which would take better pictures anyways.

I'm fairly new at photography and it's something that I enjoy doing.  But I don't want to lug around my big DSLR everywhere I go...nor do I have the thousands of dollars to spend to buy the individual lenses either, so I figured, for $70, even if it's a bust, i'll just return it and no harm and no foul.  Turns out, i'm NOT going to return it because I absolutely LOVE it!  It has it's limitations and I'll go through it in detail with each lens.  But as you can see to the right, there is a lens on each side of the unit.  On of the sides, you just unscrew one of the lens's and you've got the third one.  It all comes in a handy little pouch and each side has a little lens cap to protect it when not in use.

Uh....just a warning, I didn't really realize how messy my desk really was until I uploaded the pictures.....so...don't judge...I'm not really that messy!

Let's start with some general limitations.  I found that sometimes I had problems with the flash reflecting inwards and causing a bright spot in the middle of the shot.  It doesn't happen all of the time, but it does happen in say, 99% of the time, so it's almost like you can't use it if you need to use the flash.  You also can't use it for the front facing camera.  In addition, if you have a case for your phone, you'll have to take it off in order to use the lens.  Often, i found myself gripping my camera so hard, like my life depended on it, because I didn't want to accidentally drop it.

Wide Angle Shot
First lens up is the Wide Angle Shot.  In comparison to the regular shot, it captures a great deal more in the shot.  What happens is that it causes a wide angle magnification as opposed to zoom.  So it looks like I'm a lot further away from Mr. Griffin, but I wasn't.  (Ugh..the mess.  I'm soooo sorry guys!)  It's by no means a perfect panoramic type of wide angle because you'll notice that towards the edges of the shot, the picture starts to bend (which would happen with a regular wide angle lens, but definitely not to this degree).  It's probably not noticeable to most people, but it's there.  I do want to stress that for these pictures, I pretty much had the same position and didn't deviate much distance wise between the wide angle, fish eye and regular shot.


Fish Eye Shot
Second Lens is the Fish Eye.  I've always really like this effect but I just can't (or at least, not yet) justify spending $800 for a fish eye lens.  This effect is supposed to bend the corners of your shot to give you a fish-bowl type of view.  The kind where it's like you're viewing the world through a glass bowl filled with water.  You'll notice that in each corner, it's black, but that's just the effect from the lens.
The last lens is the macro.  This is another lens that I'd like to eventually get for my DSLR.  All you do is screw off the wide angle lens and voila!  The macro lens.  I must admit, this one is the most impressive of the three lenses.  I'm amazed at how close up of a shot I was able to get with this one.  I can't say enough!  This one would be worth the price of the Olloclip alone.  There is one thing that does happen with this lens, but if you have the patience, it will fix itself is that sometimes the camera tries to autofocus and keeps trying to autofocus.  If you give it time (i'm talking seconds, not minutes), it'll focus correctly.  And when it does, magical things happen.  I did have to use a different subject for this shot...as much as I'm sure you'd like to see Mr. Griffin's little beak hairs up close, I thought that I'd save that for next time.
Macro Shot
Yes, that is the face of my watch.  No photoshop trickery at all.  Now you see what I mean?

Overall, I really like this product and definitely recommend it.  It's great in the way that it's not a prohibitively expensive gadget, but because it'll provide a lot of use for someone like me who wants to take those great shots, but doesn't want to lug the big camera around.  

5 comments:

  1. That seems really cool. I have been wanting a macro lens so maybe this is my more affordable option!

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, the macro lens really impressed me and probably my favorite out of all the lenses.

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  2. This is awesome, and I really like your little plushie hatchling.

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  3. Hi, thanks for following! Followed your two blogs :))

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