Shoot ultra wide angle with a Jelly Fisheye lens
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 10:00AM | Glyn Evans 
Above: Attaching the Jelly Fisheye Lens to my iPhone 4Last August Scott Nicholson reviewed the Magnetic/Detachable Wide Angle lens from USBfever, and whilst I liked the idea, I did not want to permanently fix anything to my iPhone, so I looked on eBay and found a range of non permanent, stick on lenses from Jelly Lens, which use a tacky jelly like substance to temporarily stick the lens to any camera phone.
In addition to the Fisheye lens that I ordered, you can also get a stretch lens, a 6 image mirage lens, a 3 image mirage, a close-up lens, a heart frame and blue filter, a star and sepia filter, a spark, a soft lens, a vignette lens, a polarizer lens and a starburst lens.
There were plenty of sellers selling these lenses on eBay, but as I was unsure if it would work or not, I looked for the cheapest one I could find. I ended up buying a fish eye lens from a seller in Hong Kong for just £1.49 including shipping. With in a week the lens arrived, and yesterday I got chance to try it out, and here is my mini review.
The lens I ordered did not come in a retail pack, but for £1.49, what can you expect. The lens itself, despite being 100% plastic, is well made, and I found it easy to align and stick over either of the iPhone 4 lenses, although it does obscure the flash. What I did find however, was the jelly was not very sticky and so the lens would not stay in place for any more that about 5 seconds, making it pretty useless, however removing the jelly and replacing it with some blue/white tack fixed the problem.
Above: Taken without the Jelly Lens
Above: Taken with the Jelly Fisheye Lens
So what did I think of the Jelly wide-angle lens?
OK, the images are soft and a little fuzzy, the vignette/edges are yellow/green in colour, and it needs a little modification to make it stick to the glass front of the iPhone 4, but for £1.49 it's not bad, and whilst it wont win any awards, for the money, it was a good buy. If you want to create that fisheye look on the cheap, then I recommend tracking one of these down on eBay.
Reader Comments (9)
I got the fish eye, macro and star filters. They are great compliments to my mobile (phone) cameras! If the jelly isn't sticky, a little moisture helps!!
sorry, I meant star BURST filter.
Ooooh, I think I'm going to get the polorizer and closeup lenses for sure, and maybe the starburst but I haven't decided for sure on that one. Nifty little gadgets, thanks for the review.
I added one more to my want list - the spark filter. So series 7, 8, 10 (maybe) and 12. I think that will keep me busy.
... or you could just use some decent post-processing app like Photo FX.
@Nick Trust me, I have post-processing apps falling out of my ears and I use them a lot ... but I'm also a gadget geek girl and these lenses tickle my fancy so I would love to give them a whirl too. :D
you can get them from photojojo.com rather than e-bay. They are a super awesome quirky photo company out of SF and I the starburst, wide, and kaliedascope which are all fantastic.
I got the entire set from eBay about a year ago. Back then I was still using an Omnia, and I used them to take weird looking pictures. They work FABULOUSLY with the iphone, and I carry them with me at all times.
To get tracking on a photojojo order I'm going to be paying as much shipping as the cost of the item :(. Have had too many issues with deliveries to just hope for the best :( (international)