The first of its kind, the HiLo lens is a right-angle lens for your iOS device that lets you take pictures from all sorts of angles. It’s available on Kickstarter, which is currently seeking backers for its clip-on lens. Smartphones rarely have cameras worth a good picture, and tablets are more troublesome, and sometimes you’d want a fresh angle for your photographs. Try it with HiLo, and you’ll get a real photo!
HiLO Lens is developed by an optical engineer (Alexander), mechanical designer (Onur), app developer (Nguyen) and led by Mark Hampton. The project began in mid-2011, and they have opted for crowdfunding for their project through Kickstarter as Mark believes that it’s seriously cool. After reaching their funding goal successfully, they will start production, and shipping will be done approximately 12 weeks before it. The lens is available for the iPhone 4/4S/5 and iPad 3. A pledge of $60 will get you a HiLo for your iPhone.
If you have an iPad 3, you’ll need to spring for the $70 version with an adapter that accommodates the curve on the back of the tablet. It’s developed using custom-designed optics made with three lenses and a prism that keeps the design tiny while capturing the iPhone camera’s full field of view. It’s more sophisticated than any other lens available in the market. If you love taking a picture with your iPhone or iPad, then you should be excited about this project since there’s nothing like it out there. It allows you to use low angles, high angles, and wide angles to capture all subjects.
To give you an idea, here’s what you can do with the HiLo lens according to the Kickstarter page:
- Low angle – great for photographing young children and pets
- High angle – like a periscope for photographing over a crowd
- Wide-angle – choose wide or standard, for video and photos
- Any surface becomes a tripod – just lay the iPhone down
- Self-portraits & group shots – with an adjustable shutter delay
If this lens goes into production, it will also come bundled with a free application designed to compensate for the mirroring caused by the prism. A lens like this could be very convenient and improves the image quality of the pictures. This is a great product for people who love taking pictures with their iPhones and especially tablet owners. The standard HiLo lens will attach to your iPhone, while the HiLo with an adapter will attach to the curved back of your third or fourth-generation iPad.
So, if you like the look of the Hilo lens and would like to back the project, you can do so for $60. It’s the last day to run and is currently just under its target for funding of $27,500. What’s more, the company has announced that if they raise over $37,500, they will add a voice-activated shutter option to the app, which will help to use the lens like a tripod the app when to take the photo. This is some pretty cool stuff!
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