Olloclip for iPhone

As someone who has loved photography for the past 25 years and calls it her only hobby, I was slow to pick up on the power of the iPhone camera as a photography tool. Let’s be honest: the camera is not the best. For someone who has shot with SLRs (and now DSLRs) with interchangeable lenses and manual controls, the iPhone camera pales in comparison. When I first got my iPhone, I was primarily using it as a way to capture those sweet, precious and hard-to-catch moments with my toddler. The DSLR is always stored in a closet and doesn’t see the light of day on most weekends. It’s just too heavy, and by the time you get it out and figure out your settings, your toddler has made the funny face or finished doing that one magical thing for the first time, and has moved on to a whole other activity. The iPhone, however, is almost always in my back pocket, at the ready. I never expect the pictures to be phenomenal. I’m just happy I catch the moments.

It wasn’t until recently, however, that I started to notice the iPhone being discussed by photography enthusiasts or written about in photography newsletters to which I subscribe. And then a friend of mine – who is far more versed in photography than me and experiments with his DSLR almost daily – introduced me to the Olloclip. We were at happy hour and he popped out this cute little lens, asking if I had jumped on the bandwagon yet. He let me experiment. I was hooked! Happy hour: a time to catch up with friends? Forget it! I was more interested in playing around with the Olloclip. It is so easy to slide onto your phone and depending on how you put it on, you can get a fish-eye, macro, or wide angle effect. How cool is that? As someone who loves shallow depth of field and loves taking photos of flowers, butterflies and tiny objects up close, this has been the perfect accessory for my iPhone. And I’ve had more fun with the fish eye than I could have imagined, especially given that I don’t own a fish eye lens for my DSLR. The only small drawback to the Olloclip is that you have to remove your case to slide it on, and unlike my cousin who doesn’t see the point of messing up the sleek feel of the iPhone by putting on a case, my toddler’s handling of my phone necessitates one! But despite this small drawback, the Olloclip is still a must-have for me. I now just search for a case that is easy enough to remove and put back on. In short, whether you’re an exclusive iPhone camera user who doesn’t even own another camera or a photography enthusiast who has all the DSLR gear for magnificent photographs, if you own an iPhone, you should also own an Olloclip! Happy shooting!

It is available for the iPhone 4 / 4S and iPhone 5 here at iPhoneAccessories.com