How I Started Using Moment Lenses For Smartphone Photography

Ever since I sold my DSLR Sony a300 with all the accessories and lenses that I had with it to pay the bills year ago, I feel like a part of has been missing in my life. After countless jobs to pay the bills and life getting in the way I completely lost touch with my love for photography. That is until a year ago.

I realized that I had not been doing the one thing I had always loved and that was taking photos and editing them. Not to mention people were paying me for my work. I was off to a great start and I simply cut the legs out from under myself. As a word of advice: never sell something you love just to pay your bills for a few months. You will regret it in the long run.

But this brings me to today. With this void in my life for photography I have been craving to get out into the world and take pictures and this is how the whole smartphone photography came into play.


With technology becoming so fast, you can get a nice camera that takes great pictures on today’s smartphones. Android and iPhone. When i first heard and saw people taking smartphone photography seriously I thought it was kind of dumb. But then I started seeing Youtubers vlogging with their phones and using the phone as their only camera. Sites all across the web have articles comparing an iPhone photo to photos from some of the nicest Canon and Sony SLR’s out there and that is were I realized I could not tell the difference in some of the pictures. That's amazing that you can get that type of quality out of a smartphone compared to a standard large body DSLR/SLR mirrorless camera.

With the quality being on par with some of the expensive cameras this has caused manufacturers of accessories to come out of the woodwork with all types of add ons to your phone to make it more like a camera. I think we have all seen those little clip on “lenses” but most of those are just cheap pieces of plastic that don't do much for quality. But don’t get me wrong there are some nice high quality accessories you can add on to your smartphone and that is what I want to talk about.


About a year ago I started noticing a company called Moment that was creating lenses for smartphones like they would for DSLR cameras. The glass in the lenses were big and beefy and had a high quality weight and feel to them and you could just tell that these were like no other lenses for your smartphone.

They way they work is you have to buy a case for your phone, that's how they get you to spend more, and after that the lenses attach to the case sitting over your built in lens on the back of your camera. After seeing countless ads and videos for these lenses I decided to bet one and a case and I was amazed at the quality. At first I could not see a large increase in quality but when you start to zoom in and look at the quality of the pictures that the lenses produce you will see the difference. Depending on what type of lenses you want they have a variety to pick from like wide angle lenses to macro and even an anamorphic lens for video. I would say that Moment is the leader when it comes to taking smartphone photography and video seriously. Since they have been out for a while now they now offer much more than lenses. They have all types of ND filters, UV filters, microphones, cases, tripods, gimbals, and much more. They have just about any accessory you can think of when it comes to smartphone photography or videography and they even have their own app on iOS and Android to take pictures and videos with so that you can dial in the settings more professionally then your standard camera app that comes on your phone. In fact, you don't have to have their lenses if you want to use their app, it works completely stand alone if you want to just use a more professional camera app.

The world of photography is changing and Moment gets it, that's why I love this company. I now have the wide angle lens and the tele lens which is the two I recommend everyone starting out with if you are looking to take your smartphone pictures and videos to the next level. Not only that but the lenses have such a much larger size to them than the rinky dink plastic ones in the stores that most people will know you mean business when they see your lens attached to your phone. The craftsmanship and sleek elegance of the lenses show that you are not just your average person taking pictures with your phone. Which is also why most of all the lenses are around $100 and up along with most of the cases being anywhere from $36 to $46 dollars.

The whole reason I got into smartphone photography was because I sold my old DSLR and haven't had the money to buy a nice new mirrorless SLR yet, but this allowed me to experience the world of smartphone photography.

If you are like me and you really want to get into or back into photography but you just don't have the money yet for a nice mirrorless SLR the moment lenses are a great stepping stone for someone who wants to get their toes wet in photography.

If you are into smartphone photography I would love to know what gear you use and what your thoughts on the Moment lenses are. Leave a comment below.