As a blogger taking great photos is super important, but also as a mum I want to take the best photos of my boys I can. With a smartphone I often find myself wishing I could zoom - I know what you're going to say "get a DSLR camera!" right? But with a large camera you have to carry that around with you and to be honest that always annoyed me a little.
These days though there are so many accessories for your smartphone that it is easy to find something to do the job. I was recently sent a couple of products from Paladone, some accessories for my phone which may prove useful.
Get super close
The first is a microscope - for my phone. Yep. Now to be honest in regular photo taking I'm not sure when I would use this but for the teen for homework it could be useful. The Discovery Channel Smart Phone Microscope, available for £9.99, is smaller than I though it would be and actually works quite well even with my iPhone X.
My only issue with it is that with the iPhone X, because the camera is slightly different it focuses on the sides of the microscope sometimes so it can be a little frustrating to use. However saying that I think it would work find with other smartphones because the camera is much smaller than the iPhone X.
I took a few photos using the Microscope and some for comparison...
A close up of the cotton ball.
Small pieces of a grasshopper from a microscope kit of BP's
The grasshopper wing under the microscope
The grasshopper abdomen under the microscope
See far
So like I said the zoom was a big deal for me, that's part of the reason I got an iPhone X - the zoom. But what if you could zoom even more? That's where the Discovery Channel Smart Phone Telescope, available for £19.99, comes in. The telescope allows me to photograph things that are far away without leaving the warmth of my home, as you can see from the photos below.
This photo was taken from my office at home, circled is a horse in the distance.
This photo was taken from the same place using the Discovery Channel Smart Phone Telescope.
As you can see from the photo the Telescope has a black surround when using it with the iPhone X. It also slides so if you want to take a photo you'll have to be quick. The weight of the Telescope makes it slide over the camera and if you're not quick enough you'll snap a black photo rather than the thing you want to have a photo of. Again though I think this is because it's an iPhone X, the camera is large and the Telescope doesn't sit around it, it sits on it. This means the telescope slides instead of sitting in place. I'm sure it would work fine on an iPhone 7 or below (or android phones).
A handy tripod comes with the Telescope too, which I did actually find useful. One thing I'll mention though is that you have to arrange the legs so that the phone doesn't fall over when you try to use it. The phone works best standing directly on top of the tripod rather than to the side. Weight is an issue.
For an iPhone X I'm not sure these devices work very well but for older phones, like the iPhone 7, I'm sure these devices would be great. The issues I've mentioned (weight, sliding, etc) are just related to the iPhone X and I don't think that would be the case with older devices.
The telescope and the microscope would make a great stocking filler - something interesting for that teen to use on Christmas Day perhaps?
Have you ever used a microscope or telescope with your phone?