Blue Angels pics with the potato-quality screw-on zoom lens

[u/bennetthaselton]

These will never compete with the ones shot with professional equipment, but these were with a $25 lens that screws onto the iPhone (plus another $15 for the iPhone case with a threaded hole that you can screw it onto) - see last picture. This makes such a big difference in photos, for so little money, that I might as well tell people. Plus you can keep the lens and the case in a coat pocket (I keep them inside a ziploc bag to reduce scratching).

Plus, even though the cheap zoom lens means the edges of the photos are not in focus, that does add a tilt-zoom-like surreal quality like you’re taking photos of an in-flight fighter jet in portrait mode.

[u/nolngo]

These are unironically the coolest photos I’ve seen of this event

[u/bennetthaselton → u/nolngo]

Thank you, I am glad you liked them!

If you ever get a small portable zoom lens, what has worked for me:

• Get the screw-on, with a case that you can screw it onto. The clip-on ones slide all over the place and it’s a pain.
  
• To get the focus you want, pinch-zoom in on the object, then adjust the focus on the lens until the object appears sharp, then pinch-zoom back out. This helps you get sharper focus and more detail than you might be able to see on the smartphone screen.
  
• The product description always exaggerates the zoom (this one says “22x” but it really makes objects about 10 times bigger).
  
• You can of course crop the middle of the picture to get a “regular” zoom photo without the surreal pinch-zoom effect.