Hands-On With Olloclip's New 4-in-1 Photo Lens for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

Back in October, Olloclip announced a new 4-in-1 Photo Lens designed to fit the iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus. While it was available for pre-order at the time, the new lens has now begun shipping out to customers and will arrive in stores shortly, ahead of the Black Friday shopping holiday.

Like its previous products, Olloclip's 4-in-1 Photo Lens adds four lens attachments to the iPhone's camera, offering two lenses that extend the field of view -- wide angle and fisheye -- and two that capture up-close macro shots.

The new Olloclip 4-in-1 Photo Lens is the company's most unique product offering to date, as it is the first Olloclip lens that is able to work with both the front and rear-facing cameras. Previous Olloclip lenses designed for earlier iPhones were only functional with the rear camera or front camera, but with the growing focus on selfies, Olloclip opted to make its new product more versatile.

What's in the Box

Included in the box is one Olloclip 4-in1 Photo Lens attachment with fisheye, wide-angle, 10x macro, and 15x macro lenses, plus accessories like three interchangeable carrying clips, lens caps, a carrying pouch, two removable inserts to fit either the iPhone 6 or the iPhone 6 Plus, and a lanyard for carrying the 4-in-1 Photo Lens when not in use.

Design

While the body of the lens attachment is made of plastic, the lenses themselves are high quality and constructed from aluminum and glass. The 4-in-1 Photo Lens uses a dual lens design, with one lens that fits over the rear camera and one that fits over the front camera. As with all Olloclip lenses, the new 4-in-1 Photo Lens can only be used with a bare iPhone as it cannot fit over a case.

There are two separate plastic inserts, one for the iPhone 6 and one for the iPhone 6 Plus. The Olloclip comes with the iPhone 6 insert installed, so iPhone 6 Plus users will need to slide out the existing plastic insert to attach the one designed for the iPhone 6 Plus. The 4-in-1 Photo Lens needs two separate inserts to ensure a good fit, as the iPhone 6 is 6.9mm thick while the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.1mm thick.

Once the insert is installed, attaching the lens to an iPhone is simple and quick, with Olloclip's instructions directing users to slide the attachment over the protruding rear-facing camera. The lens slides on easily over the protruding lens of the iPhone and locks into place due to cutouts in the plastic.

On the iPhone 6, when the rear-facing lens is installed over the rear camera, the front-facing lens covers the front camera as well, allowing the Olloclip 4-in-1 Photo Lens to be used in either direction. On the iPhone 6 Plus, the sizing is somewhat different, so switching between the front-facing and rear-facing Olloclip lenses requires some slight repositioning of the accessory.

The 4-in-1 Photo Lens must be tilted to the left slightly to accurately fit over the front-facing camera iPhone 6 Plus camera, and tilted back to the right to fit over the rear-facing camera. Because of the need to reposition, it can sometimes take a few seconds of adjusting get a solid fit that will result in clear images.

Lenses

Olloclip's 4-in-1 Photo Lens comes with a fisheye lens for creating wide-angle fisheye photos, a wide-angle lens that extends the field of view for capturing landscapes, and two macro lenses at 10x and 15x.

Because of its dual-camera design, the Photo Lens has a 10x macro lens at one end and a 15x macro lens at the other end, which are converted into a wide-angle and fisheye lenses, respectively, when additional lens attachments are screwed on.

Like all of Olloclip's products, each of the four lenses produces crisp photos that are as clear as the photos that come from the standard iPhone camera. The 10x and 15x macro lenses are useful for taking ultra close shots of small objects, with the 15x version naturally producing more magnification. The two macro lenses are really only useful on the rear-facing camera, however, as the lens needs to be very close to the subject to capture a clear image.

The wide-angle lens and the fisheye lens can be used with both the front-facing and rear-facing cameras, and when used on the front-facing camera for selfies, both greatly extend the field of view to allow more of a subject's surroundings into the image. The fisheye produces the standard fisheye distortion making it useful for stylized images, while the wide-angle simply extends the field of view. Capturing a group photo with the front-facing camera is much easier with the Olloclip attached, for example.

On the rear-facing cameras, the two lenses function in the same way, extending the field of view of the existing iPhone camera. The wide-angle lens can allow the iPhone to capture much more of a landscape, while the fisheye offers a complete 180 degree field of view.

Image Examples

Raspberry macro at 10x on left, at 15x on right

Field of view without wide-angle lens on left, with wide-angle lens on right

Fisheye lens, indoor on left, outdoor on right

Accessories

In addition to allowing the accessory to fit over both the front and rear cameras of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the new Olloclip's lengthwise design also improves its portability. Olloclip ships the accessory with three carrying clips, which let the 4-in-1 Photo Lens to be attached to a lanyard, a set of keys, a backpack, and more whenever it's not in use.

The carrying clips snap right into the 4-in-1 Photo Lens, and when capturing a photo, it's a simple process to snap out the carrying clip and attach it to the iPhone. There are also two lens caps to keep the lenses from being scratched, and a small pouch available for storage when using macro capabilities.

How to Buy

The Olloclip 4-in-1 Photo Lens can be purchased from the Olloclip website for $79.99. It's available in several color combinations, including Silver/Black, Gold/White, Red/Black, Space Gray/Black, and Silver/White.