Zeiss has teamed up with smartphone accessory maker Fellowes ExoLens to introduce a series of external camera lens for the iPhone. The ExoLens with optics from Zeiss comes in three flavours, covering a wide angle, telephoto, and macro lenses.
The lenses are attached to the iPhone 6 using a customised mount that holds the lens up to the camera. However, it is capable of doing a whole lot more seeing that the mount also contains a standard tripod mount and a cold shoe for camera accessories. This allows the iPhone to be attached to regular photography gear like dollies and shoulder rigs.
The telephoto and wide angle lenses feature an infinite focal length, and instead relies on the iPhone camera to do all the focusing work. Zeiss says that this means that “the limits of which are defined only by the technical properties of the mobile phone camera.”
ExoLens expects to begin shipping the Zeiss developed lens by the second quarter of 2016. At launch, the lenses will only be available for the iPhone 6/6s and the iPhone 6 plus/6s plus. The company says that it intends the expand the number of compatible devices, although it is unknown how long this will take.
[Source: Zeiss]
