The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, are capable of taking superb photos straight out of the box and the fixed lens gives you great quality images in most situations. However, there’s only so much you can do without using an add-on lens.
All the small things
This time I’m looking at Olloclip’s Macro 3-in-1 lens kit for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which offers three different lenses devoted to the art of close-up macro photography. With each of these lenses you can take pictures from around 20mm away, enabling the tiniest of objects to be rendered in precise detail.
Close in on the eyes of spider or the reflections in a raindrop and a new world of photography opens up, one you simply can’t enter with the iPhone alone. Be aware though that these lenses will only focus for extreme close-up shots - anything further away will be completely out of focus.
If you’re familiar with Olloclip’s products, you’ll know what to expect. They’re well-made metal-barrelled lenses attached to a sturdy plastic clip which slides over the top of your iPhone, aligning with the built in lens. They come with a selection handy accessories, such as interchangeable wearable pendants, lens caps and soft pouches and work with any photo app you might prefer to use.
I recently reviewed Olloclip’s 4-in-1 Lens kit which gives you fisheye, wide-angle and two different macro options. The physical design of the Macro 3-in-1 Lens kit is pretty much identical so, rather than repeat myself here, I’ll leave you to take a look at my review of the 4-in-1 Lens by following the link below:
Read More: Olloclip 4-In-1 Lens Review: How To Take Better iPhone 6 Photos
The 4-in-1 product is a very versatile lens kit and capable of pretty good macro results i its own right, with 10x and 20x magnification options included. It does, however, exhibit noticeable pincushion distortion and generally less sharpness at the edges of the frame as compared to the centre.
Where the 4-in-1 Lens kit offers 10x and 20x magnification options for macro, the dedicated Macro 3-in-1 kit gives you 7x, 14x and 21x.
Olloclip 3-in-1 Macro tests. Left to right: iPhone 6 Plus rear lens, 7x Macro, 14x Macro, 21x macro... [+]
Two main lens elements are attached to the clip: One side providing the 21x lens, while the reverse side is fitted with the 14x version. Unscrew a detachable element from this side and it converts into the 7x magnification option.
The clip can then be reversed to switch lenses or adjusted slightly to swap over to the iPhone’s front camera. I don’t imagine many of us attempting macro selfies with the front-facing camera though, so with this kit you’ll be using the rear camera almost exclusively.
The clip grips the phone tightly enough for you to be confident it won’t fall off, but when you do need to remove it, it comes off easily without a fight.
Why buy the Macro version?
As you’ve probably noticed, there’s quite a lot of overlap in magnification between the macro lenses in the 3-in-1 kit and the two you get with the 4-in-1 set, so the obvious question has to be, why buy the dedicated macro lens set?
In my tests, the 3-in-1 Macro set gives better quality. While all of the lenses exhibit a fair bit of pincushion distortion (straight lines tend to bend outwards more towards the edges), the 3-in-1 macro lenses are sharper and continue to be sharper up to the edges of the frame. Distortion is also less obvious on the 3-in-1 set, but be prepared to do some software correction if you need distortion-free images with dead-straight lines. Whether or not you really need to do this will depend on the type of subjects you’re shooting and whether or not the edges of your picture are in sharp focus. In many cases, the distortion won’t matter at all, while in others it will be distracting and obvious.
Olloclip 3-in-1 Macro distortion tests. Left to right: iPhone 6 Plus rear lens, 7x Macro, 14x Macro,... [+]
The 15x macro found in the 4-in-1 set is very sharp in the centre of the picture, but rapidly becomes blurry around half way to the edge. By contrast, the 17x macro lens from this 3-in-1 set is visibly much sharper.
The 3-in-1 macro lenses focus at about 20mm from your subject, so it can be difficult to get enough light between the subject and your phone. To help with this, the lens set comes with a pair of frosted translucent hoods which attach to the lenses, scattering incoming light around the subject, to create a soft, even illumination.
They also act as a handy guide to the closest focusing distance. For example, if you’re photographing a small object on a flat surface, you can just lower your phone down over the object until the hood touches the surface. This will give you the best magnification and also help you to steady the phone, which is crucial in macro photography as any tiny movements are hugely magnified by the lens.
I found I could actually focus little closer than the hood would allow, but it’s much harder to get a sharp photo hand-held without the steadying effect of the hood. Sometimes removal will be unavoidable, for example when you want to focus through a transparent layer or when the hood simply blocks you from getting close enough.
Shallow Depth of Field
Compared to a DSLR, your iPhone has a very wide depth of field: Objects both near and far usually appear simultaneously in sharp focus. This can lead to iPhone photographers deliberately blurring the edges of their pictures to achieve a DSLR-like effect where a sharp subject pops out from a softly blurred background.
With macro photography, you often have the opposite problem: The depth of field is so narrow that only the tiniest portion of the image is in focus, and there’s often a struggle to get more of the picture in focus rather than less. The more three-dimensional your subject is, the more likely you are to have too much out of focus in your image. The Olloclip Macro 3-in-1 lenses produce a very shallow depth of field, which can be great, but it’s not always what you’ll want.
This problem is exacerbated with the iPhone which has a fixed wide-aperture lens. On a DSLR you would stop the lens down to get more in focus, but this isn’t possible on an iPhone.
The result is that, the greater the magnification of your macro lens, the more likely you are to have problems getting enough in focus.
One way around this is to use the “focus stacking” technique, where you take multiple shots at different focus settings and merge them later with additional software. You can do this automatically on your iPhone using the Stay Focused app, which is free to download.
Why three different magnifications?
When shooting three-dimensional objects, you may find you have to balance magnification and depth of field in order to get the best photo. Too much magnification causes you to lose depth of field. Too little doesn’t get you in close enough to render fine detail.
Furthermore, the higher magnification lenses creating more distortion, or bending of the image, so you have to judge the trade-off between magnification and unwanted bendiness.
It’s tempting to go with the most powerful magnification all the time, but with three levels of magnification available, you can experiment with the different lenses in order to get the best-looking images.
Conclusion
If you only take the occasional macro shot, then the original Olloclip 4-in-1 Lens is more versatile, with a wider variety of lens types and a reasonable level of macro magnification.
The 3-in-1 macro set is for people who want to take a lot of close-ups and demand higher quality. In that respect it certainly delivers. It’s also much easier to use when taking macros, thanks to the removable plastic hoods which can also improve the lighting of your subjects.
At $69.99, it’s priced at $10 less than the 4-in-1 set and adds a much improved close-up facility to your iPhone’s repertoire.
