Our pick
Moment’s 1.33x Anamorphic Lens gives your smartphone videos a wider, cinematic look and cool lens flares.
Moment’s durable case is a smooth and effective mounting system for our recommended lenses. Because it’s so easy to use and protective, we didn’t mind keeping the case on even without a lens attached.
Moment’s 1.33x Anamorphic Lens can give your smartphone videos and photos a more cinematic appearance with sexy horizontal flares. For avid smartphone shooters concerned about high-quality results and a well-designed mounting system, Moment lenses are worth the investment. Unlike cheaper plastic lenses, which can slightly degrade your images, Moment’s lenses use large glass optics that create sharp images with little to no distortion across the entire frame.
And while we still recommend Moment’s Wide 18mm Lens and Tele 58mm Lens, these may not feel as necessary if you have a newer iPhone with three built-in lenses. The Wide 18mm Lens expands your iPhone’s field of view just enough to feel like a fresh perspective (about 0.63x magnification). The 2x Tele 58mm Lens doubles the optical zoom of your iPhone’s lens without degrading the image quality as digital zoom can.
Using these lenses requires an additional purchase, the Moment Photo Case. Mounting and unmounting lenses on this case offers the smoothest and easiest experience among the lens systems we tested—you just twist the lens in or out, similar to doing so on a DSLR camera—and the lenses remain firmly attached. The Moment cases are so protective, stylish, and easy to use that we didn’t mind keeping them on, even when we weren’t using the lenses.
Compatible phones: Apple iPhone 7 through 14 series, Samsung Galaxy S9+ through Galaxy S22 models, Galaxy Note10 through Note20/Note20 Ultra, and Google Pixel 2 through Pixel 7
Budget pick
This clip-on set is a cheap way to add variety to your smartphone camera, offering nine add-on lenses that are better than most in this price range, along with a convenient carrying case.
The Criacr 9-in-1 Lens Kit set stands out from similar clip-on options by offering an array of lenses to expand your smartphone photography options. Two wide-angle lenses, two macro lenses, a 2x telephoto zoom lens, a 198-degree fish-eye lens, a circular polarizer/linear lens, a starburst lens, and a kaleidoscope lens all fit inside a carrying case with a carabiner attachment. In terms of image quality, these lenses are a noticeable step down from any Moment lens, with some blurring throughout the frame. The clip-on mount can be easily bumped, causing further image-quality problems, but these lenses are a fun and affordable way to experiment prior to committing to a more expensive setup, and they work with your front-facing selfie camera.
Compatible phones: Clip-on should fit most smartphones.
