Monday, February 27, 2012

The Ollo Clip- A Way To Take Wide Angle, Fish Eye, Or Macro Pictures Without Going Broke


Let me preface this post by saying I'm not a techie...but apparently our plasterer is.  He recently whipped out the Ollo Clip and slapped it on his iPhone to take some inside pics of the house.  My husband was in awe and did the smartest thing he could do.  Buy me one.  

So you might be thinking "what the hell is an Ollo Clip?"  Well, my friends, it's a 3-in-1 lens accessory for the iPhone.  Obviously if you don't have an iPhone this really isn't going to be useful to you...sorry.  But if you do?  You're welcome.  This thing is awesome.  It has a large fisheye lens on one side and a wide-angle and macro precision lens on the other. 

 I've been hemming and hawing over buying a wide angle lens for my DSLR, the camera I have yet to use because it's buried in a box somewhere.  I've been wanting one to take better interior pics where you can see the whole room instead of taking random pictures to try to piece a room together.  The thing is, a wide angle lens is like $800.  Hence the reason I have yet to buy one.  I know you can rent one, but I also know myself very well.  If I rent one it will never find its way back to the owner.  I'm just that lazy.  So when I got this little gift the other day I was just ecstatic.  I normally take my crappy pictures with my point and shoot.  I suppose I could take better pictures if I knew the camera better and did some editing, but again, laziness.  And, I know that the iPhone doesn't take the best pictures ever, but having the ability to take a wide angle photo on the iPhone at a fraction of the cost of going out and buying a lens is great.  Is it better than a DSLR and a wide-angle lens...no, but it's 10 million percent better at showing my rooms than without it.  

Here's some pictures I took yesterday with and without it.  Please excuse the mess that is our living room.  Still a work in progress, obviously.  

Without lens


With wide-angle lens

So you can see the difference in the ability to capture the room.  I took these pictures from the same spot.  And, no, I didn't edit these.  They probably could look a lot better with a little editing love, but you get the point.

So what do you think?  Did I mention it's $69?  That's 3 lenses for $69.  I know I couldn't be happier:)

6 comments:

  1. I am getting an iphone in ten days when my contract is up! And I will be buying a pretty case for it and now apparently I will be buy a nice lens for it too! :-)

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  2. Wow! What a difference! And only $69???
    I'm going to have to add one of these to my wish list...

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  3. This looks cool. I have an iPhone so I should consider this. I still need to learn instagram.

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  4. Oh cute. I can't imagine I would ever remember to bring this accessory when I needed it for the iphone but good to know it exists.

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  5. Opps..hit enter too soon. I meant to add that there you can get a similar effect for free (without the image distortion of this lens) by using a panoramic image app on the iphone. Its a fun way to capture a wide view - even a 360 degree look - at a space. I keep meaning to use it on the blog but always seem to forget about it. Thanks for the reminder.

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  6. I love this tip!! Thanks- never heard of it!!

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