Review: Moment Lenses and iPhone 7 plus

If you’ve been following my blog you know I’m a fan of the Moment lenses and used them since they hit the market. I have both, the wide and 2x zoom lens. Those high quality glasses are the best lenses for the iPhone for the iPhone I’ve used so far. Check out my review of the Moment Wide Lens and the Moment Telephoto Lens review here in my blog.

But as Apple changed the form factor for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7plus, the existing Moment mounting plates and the Moment Photo Case do not fit any more.

But Moment reacted quite fast. As soon as the iPhone was out, they put a an iPhone 7 status page online and kept their customers informed about if and how the Moment lenses will work with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus. That’s what I call transparent customer information.

There’s no Moment case for the iPhone 7 or 7plus yet. So I ordered the mounting plate for my iPhone 7plus and I got it today. Here are my first impressions.

Moment Mounting Plate for iPhone 7plus

iPhone 6/6S/6plus/6Splus users have two options to mount the Moment lenses to their iphones. Either by attaching a plastic plate with an adhesive to their iPhone or by using a Moment Case.

I admit that I wasn’t very comfortable to stick a plate with an adhesive on my iPhone when I first got the Moment lenses. But during the past year I added and removed Moment mounting plates to a number of iPhones and so far I had no problems with the plate, especially removing them. I was able to remove the plate without any residues. Make sure you read the FAQ over at the Moment site before attempting to remove the plate.

Using the mounting plate comes with a disadvantage. You can’t use any other lens system, e.g. an Olloclip lens without removing the plate first, which, in turn, will destroy the mounting plate. But for me, that wasn’t an issue as I only use the moment lenses. I tried other lenses in the past but the Moment lenses were the ones I kept simply because of the great quality and small form factor.

The mounting plate for the iPhone 7plus fits perfectly on my iPhone. Because it’s s thin, I can still use an Apple Leather Case to protect my iPhone. The plate fits perfectly under it and the camera notch of the leather case is big enough for the mounting plate. So I can use my protective leather case and still use the Moment lenses

Using Moment Lenses with the iPhone 7 plus

The iPhone 7plus has two lenses; a wide and a tele lens and the mounting plate has bayonet mount only for the wide lens of the iPhone 7plus. So if you were hoping to use the Moment 2x tele lens in combination with the 2x zoom lens of the iPhone 7plus, effectively creating a 4x optical zoom, you’re out of look. Sort of.

But first things first. Let’s start with the Moment wide lens.

The Moment wide lens works without any problems with your iPhone 7plus. Just attach it and shoot. However, things get a little complicated when it comes to the 2x zoom lens of the iPhone 7plus and the following only applies to the iPhone 7 plus!

When you choose 2x zoom mode on the iPhone 7plus, the stock camera app (!) choses if it shoots using a digital 2x zoom or using the optical 2x zoom. It makes this decision depending on a number of yet undisclosed factors with the goal to deliver the best possible image quality.

If you’re using a third party camera app like ProCamera, you can explicitely choose which lens you want to shoot. ProCamera can shoot using only the wide lens, only the tele lens or using both lenses in “dual lens” mode.

So if you select “tele” in ProCamera app, it will use exclusively the 2x optical lens. If you chose “dual” lens mode, then ProCamera will basically take a photo with both lenses and merge data from both lenses into the resulting image.

And this is where problems will arise. It means that if you’ve mounted the wide lens and then select “tele” mode in ProCamera, your image will be black because the Moment lens covers the zoom lens of the iPhone. If you select “dual” mode in ProCamera, your final image may be exposed wrong because the moment wide lens covers the 2x tele lens of your iPhone.

Sounds complicated? Just keep in mind the following when you have an iPhone 7plus

Sorry to say, but forget about the Moment 2x tele lens for now. Use the 2x optical zoom lens of your iPhone 7plus instead. Use an app like e.g. ProCamera to ensure you use the optical 2x zoom lens of your iPhone

When using the stock camera app on an iPhone 7plus, remove the wide angle lens when switching to 2x zoom mode as you can never be sure which of the two lenses of the iPhone 7plus is used.

When using ProCamera with the Moment wide lens, make sure you shoot in wide mode and not in dual mode.

Of course this somehow limited the use of any (!) external lenses in combination with an iPhone 7plus. If you’re on an iPhone 7 or earlier model, just use any of the Moment lenses and enjoy.