I used a third-party iPhone camera for my vacation and it shows how badly Apple needs to add a wide-angle lens to the next iPhone

I used both the iPhone lens and the Ztylus Revolver lens to take photos on a trip to Portugal and Spain.
The wide-angle lens on the Revolver took much prettier photos.
But its shortcomings show why Apple needs to add a wide-angle lens to the iPhone.
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My partner and I recently went on a 10-day trip to Portugal and Spain.

I made sure to pack my Ztylus Revolver lens, which attaches to my phone’s case via a magnet and provides multiple lens options for the iPhone’s camera: wide-angle, telephoto, macro, super macro, and fish-eye. I consider it the perfect third-party lens, as it gives you so many options in a small puck that you can just keep in your pocket, and it’s easy to take on and off via the magnets it uses to attach to the case.

A lot of times, I would take a photo with the iPhone’s camera, be disappointed that it did not include everything I was seeing, and then flip out the wide-angle on the Revolver to take the same photo.

The Revolver lens would capture a lot more, but it has two drawbacks: vignetting in the corners, and some of the images look a little distorted.

These shortcomings are to be expected — third-party iPhone lenses work by putting one camera lens on top of another camera lens, which is generally not something you’re supposed to do if you want perfect shots. Relatively cheap offerings like the Revolver aren’t going to be perfect, but they will get the job done and offer more image options than the one or two lenses current iPhone models come with. Plus, you can always crop the vignetted corners out.

Once you see the kinds of shots you can get with a wide-angle lens, you’re probably going to want one on your next phone as well. It’s rumored at least one model of the iPhone 11 will come with one, something many of its competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S10 already have. If so, I hope Apple expands it to all models, because being able to take beautiful, wide-angle images without vignetting and distortion is a pretty tempting reason to switch to Android.

Here’s how standard iPhone photos stack up to photos taken on a wide-angle lens:

Here’s the Plaza de España in Seville, captured with the Revolver wide-angle lens.

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This shot of the Plaza de España in Seville was taken with the Revolver’s wide-angle lens.

If you look at the top right and bottom right corners, you will see a darkening effect called vignetting. It’s happening on all four corners, but the shape and shadows of the building make it harder to see. It also adds a slight overall curviness to the entire plaza, which becomes more prominent when you look at it compared to the shot below.

Here’s the same scene taken with the regular iPhone lens.

Matt Stuart/Business Insider

Here’s a shot of the Plaza taken from the same spot, but with the main iPhone lens. There’s no vignetting, and when you look at it compared to the previous shot, it looks like it wraps around a lot less.

This is something that happened a lot with the Revolver lens — it adds a slight circular distortion to the shots. Sometimes this makes for a really cool effect, but other times it can be pretty distracting. I like it for this, especially since the Plaza is way too big to fit in a shot taken from the regular iPhone lens.

Here’s the Alcázar of Seville, captured with the wide-angle lens.

Matt Stuart/Business Insider

This shot of the Alcázar of Seville has the vignetting in the top corners, there’s a slight sloping effect happening across the ground, and the palm tree on the left looks like it bulges outward and then comes back in.

But I still prefer this to the iPhone shot, because it is a beautiful shot of Dorne, and the iPhone lens isn’t even wide enough to fit the palm tree.

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Source: Business Insider – mstuart@businessinsider.com (Matthew Stuart)