Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/13/moment-is-offering-a-new-telep.html
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A lens is telephoto if it has a focal length greater than the “normal” lens for a camera system. (The “normal” lens is the lens that approximates a “natural” human field of view.)
A Zoom lens is a lens that has the ability to have multiple focal lengths; normally used to describe lenses that allow you to configure the lens to have any focal length between the highest and lowest focal length settings. This allows you to adjust the focal length to frame the photo (“compose the photo” as you want to without moving the camera.
This is a fixed focal length 58mm lens that will not provide any optical zoom what so ever. Also, the effects of using this lens on your smart phone will vary based on the optics already in place and the sensor size. This doesn’t matter how many cameras or lenses a phone has. (Although it will vary based on which camera and lens you use it with.)
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The lens is thicker than (for example) an entire Canon ELPH, which is a dedicated camera with an actual zoom lens. If there is no portability advantage for the Moment lens, why not just carry an actual tool designed for the job of taking pictures?
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A 2x zoom? No thanks, I’ll just stand a few steps closer.
But if you ask a lens designer, they will tell you the actual definition of a telephoto lens is a lens with a physical length shorter than its focal length. So, for example, a Canon 100 f2.8 lens is not a telephoto (being 109mm long), while the Canon 100mm f2.0 lens is a telephoto (being 73mm long). The fact is, of course, that longer focal length lenses are more likely to be of the telephoto design simply because they’d become unwieldy if they weren’t. The Canon 500mm f4 is 15 inches long. If it wasn’t a telephoto design it would be at least 20 inches long, perhaps more.
so, does the 58mm refer to the actual focal length of the lens? Or to the “35 mm equivalent focal length” (real focal length, multiplied by crop factor)?
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my history says the telephoto lenses are hype news footage
found this to be true when I got canon’s 8-15mm
but never use it much now should have plumbed the 14mm
I use the 24-105 mainly
Did any of you click on the link and try to watch the video?
Fuuuck. That was cringeworthy to the point of searing physical pain.
P.S. Apparently there are people in America wearing trousers that can be ruined by a splash of sea water.
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I think the argument is that you’ll be carrying a phone regardless. And that only having to carry a lens is better than having to carry a dedicated camera.
That makes sense unless the additional lens is not substantially less bulky than a full camera.
I honestly don’t know their products, and they don’t seem to give much info on their web site. I could easily be wrong in my guess… which is that it’s a pretty number that sounded about right so they printed it on the barrel that doesn’t describe the lens in any meaningful way.
My guess is that it is a 2X magnifier. Every external lens modifier that I have ever had the misfortune of using describes itself as a (something) magnification factor, along with the filter size. 2X , 4X, .3X magnification (for wide angles!), and so on.
So, if the phone camera has a 29mm existing lens, a 2X adapter would give you… 58mm. And I looked it up- it just so happens that an iPhone 6 had a 29MM equivalent lens. So there’s my guess.
Oh, and no lens relay that I have ever used has had anything resembling the performance of a dedicated optical path. There’s just so much to go wrong with misalignments of the screws and such. Better than nothing, but I would think you could get better photos out of a camera that costs about as much as this system does…
25 years ago, while I was in Miami, I walked into my first scam electronics store. They had bigger lenses like these sitting in shiny boxes for film SLR cameras. Like magic, your 50MM lens could become a 200MM lens that was light! Or a 20MM lens! All for a small, small price of several hundred dollars. (Which was cheap for either of those lenses…)
I took lots of photos with my new wide angle lens, and my buddy took lots of photos with his new telephoto lens. We eagerly awaited getting our film developed, and when we saw the photos… we realized we had been scammed. They looked like crap.
The first generation of digital came out, with fixed lenses. I bought several converters. They looked like crap. Thankfully, those got returned.
And yeah, I have some cheap converter lenses for my phone; they were crappy and cheap. They worked about as well as the other ones did, but my anger was bemusement because I knew what to expect and had paid appropriately…
So even if these are well constructed, beautifully bespoke made objects, IMHO they would be beautifully constructed, well made bespoke pieces of crap. But hey, they may work for people who have low expectations and a disdain for carrying a real camera.
(And yeah, I was using the simplified version of Telephoto, because that’s how most people use the phrase; if you walk into a store and ask for a Telephoto lens, that’s what they are going to sell you. 
)
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