Andrew O'Hara
Photography powerhouse Moment has debuted a whole new series of mobile lenses for iPhone and Android, releasing eight new lenses with multiple improvements to up your camera game.
Moment launched its last-generation M-Series lenses back in 2017. Now, after six years, it has updated all its glass with the launch of eight lenses that include more elements, a new bayonet system, and support for Android.
These are all of Moment's new lenses:
- Anamorphic 1.33x in gold and blue flare
- Anamorphic 1.55x in gold and blue flare
- Telephoto 58mm
- Wide 18mm
- Fisheye 14mm
- Macro 10x
These lenses offer marked improvements over the stock cameras built into your iPhone. For example, the telephoto lens allows you to capture 2X zoom photos with your primary 48MP sensor for better bokeh and resolution or 6X photos with the existing tele lens.
The anamorphic lenses bring J.J. Abrams-style lens flares to your video in multiple colors. Moment's 18mm wide lens gives you similar capture to the iPhone's ultra-wide lens but without distortion.
T-Series improvements
The new T-Series will be sold alongside the existing M-Series lenses but with several improvements.
Moment has increased the size of the opening, allowing them to be used with larger cameras found on newer iPhones and Android devices. This helps ensure future compatibility, including with the rumored iPhone 15 series.
The bayonet connection system has been reworked but is still easy to remove. It only takes a quarter-twist of a lens to remove it from your phone when not in use but is 20% larger.
Finally, they have an additional glass element to make the photos even sharper than before. They also sport increased resolution and improved MTF scores for sensors up to 108MP.
New Moment lens availability and pricing
The new lenses support multiple Android phones and nearly all iPhones. You can pick up cases with a drop-in lens mount or you can use the universal mount adapter for unsupported phones.
All of the new lenses should also work with the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models that are presumably being announced in September.
Moment's new T-Series lenses as well as its new lineup of accessories go up for preorder today and shipping begins as soon as September 7. Lens prices start at $119.
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
6 Comments
I used to buy Olloclip attachment lenses, but as Apple kept updating the camera externals they quickly became unusable. Then they started making the mounting changeable so all you needed was to replace that, not the glass. Ultimately it just became too much of a hassle, and besides the iPhone camera itself kept improving to point that it really didn’t help for my purposes. Ultimately Ollo saw the handwriting on the wall and closed up shop. I’m surprised others haven’t also.
I have a bunch of different lenses for my iPhones. Over the years I’ve bought Zeiss and other brands. For a number of reasons, while the magnification, both plus and minus, works as advertised, the quality is always less than the built-in lenses. The fact is that these are at best, moderate quality. They can never improve the quality, just lower it. It’s similar to a converter that sits behind a lens. The resulting quality is always worse. Front mounted lenses are the same.
i’ve stopped using third party lenses on my iPhones. I would really have to see some trusty, reliable tests before I’m willing to add to my drawful of collected third party iPhone lenses and cases.
Finally, Moment has admitted that their M-series lenses are not compatible with the larger sensors of the current generation of mobile 'phones.
Another major issue with these aftermarket clip-on optics is the fact that render the other lenses unusable.
They worked fine when the iPhone only had one rear lens. Those days are long gone. I believe the iPhone 7 Plus (launched in 2016) introduced a second lens.
Like Robin I bought an Olloclip but stopped when I replaced that iPhone. The camera modules have gotten better too and as mentioned earlier, correct alignment was very difficult. I'm not surprised to hear Olloclip exited the market.
But hey, if you're a social media influencer and these accessories get your posts more "likes", good for you and Moment.
I tried these back in 'the day', but quit using as Apple changed things just about every year as to render them unusable.
Now if there's any chance I'm going to be shooting more than an occasional snap, I just bring my Canon with me. Just as easy to carry as all this crap.